Utah Heritage Foundation

Communities that value their historic resources have effective Historic Preservation Commissions (HPCs).  Leeds, Utah, is one of those places.  Guided by Vision Dixie principles and leadership from the HPC, the town included a meaningful historic preservation element in their recent general plan update.  They followed that with a Reconnaissance Level Survey (RLS) to get a current baseline inventory of historic resources in their jurisdiction.  Then they took the logical next step, reviewing and revising their historic preservation ordinance to align it with the vision in their updated general plan and the RLS results.

With advice from the HPC, the town is using the information collected in the RLS to set goals and priorities for rehabbing, maintaining and using publicly-owned historic properties to benefit the community and is encouraging and assisting owners of privately held historic properties, including homeowners, to do the same.  (Right, Sarah Ann and William Stirling House, built 1876.)  Leading by example, the town is taking advantage of the opportunity to literally capitalize on their historic resources in a very tangible way by promoting heritage tourism to the Wells Fargo Silver Reef Museum and capturing visitor attention and dollars by acting as a gateway to the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area at the rehabilitated Orson B. Adams House in nearby Harrisburg. 

The Leeds Historic Preservation Commission serves not only as an advisory body to the town council, but is doubly effective as a Certified Local Government (CLG) and a National Trust Forum member with access to CLG matching grants from the Utah State Historic Preservation Office and eligibility for matching grants from the Utah Preservation Initiatives Fund (UPIF), administered by the Mountains/ Plains Office of the National Trust for Historic preservation.  The town has used its CLG grants to fund restoration work at the National Register-listed Leeds CCC Camp, to purchase and install interpretive markers, and to fund its Reconnaissance Level Survey.  UPIF grants could pay for feasibility studies to rehab historic buildings like the Leeds Tithing Office (left) through a public-private partnership with its owner, or to prepare a preservation management plan for the Wells Fargo Museum and Silver Reef historic district.

Hyrum Lefler is a young mayor with a sense of his community’s history.  He and Leeds Historic Preservation Commissioners Martha Ham (at left) and LoAnne Barnes are determined to take full advantage of their Certified Local Government (CLG) status to save the places that matter to them.  At 27, Mayor Lefler remembers well what it was like to grow up immersed in the lore and landscapes of Leeds, Silver Reef and Harrisburg.  Saga of Three Towns recounts their story, a tale as colorful and dramatic as the nearby Red Cliffs and White Reef.  If not for this documentation, UHF’s Field Representative Susan Crook might have thought Mayor Lefler and other residents were spinning campfire yarns with their briefings on a recent fieldtrip to three of the town’s historic sites.