Video URL


90025_43883_1940s_Salt_Lake_City_Utah_01
Subjects

1940s
Color

Here's a 1940s home movie of Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The clip begins with people lined up at a water fountain. A man collects a sample of water with a small container. 

In the distance, a mountain is covered with pine trees. Piles of rock are seen in the foreground. 

We then see a large, green, well-manicured garden, which appears to be fenced-in and private. We see a row of roses, many patches of rose bushes, and shrubbery. A sprinkler is watering a  small portion of the garden. 

An older white woman wearing pink walks down a stairway outside. She carries an attaché case and white hat. 

Two women wearing dresses exit a home. The older woman gets into the front passenger seat of a dark green car. The younger woman opens the suicide door to the car’s back passenger seat. Residential homes are visible in the background. 

Cars travel up and down a city’s main street. One business sign says “KAUFMANN JEWELERS.” A vertical sign on one building reads “KRESS.” A cinema marquee is visible; this may be a part of the Granada Theater's marquee. Apparently, the Granada Theater was already closed by 1930.

A white woman in a white printed dress holds a baby that’s wrapped in a baby blue blanket. The woman is standing in the shade outside a home. She speaks to the baby, as if to comfort it. 

A mountain range is seen in the distance, with many small hills, or foot hills, leading up to the mountain. In the foreground we see telephone poles and several homes. Outside one home we see a large red chimney. 

In the next scene, several women and a man leave a home and walk down a pathway toward a car, which they enter. This is the same car with suicide doors seen earlier. We see a couple in their pajamas standing on their porch, seeing off the people who are leaving. The neighborhood is in a rural-looking area.

Next there’s a waterfall on a steep, rocky cliff. The top of the waterfall appears to have some kind of filtration system -- perhaps it is a part of a dam. A stream of water flows into the distance, presumably starting from the waterfall. 

A family -- two youngish women, an older woman, and a teenage boy -- appear to be orienting themselves, as if they just got out of a car. Behind them is a tall though narrow gray wall. 

In the distance, a  river cuts through a canyon. 

In the last shot, the two younger women stand by the dark green car, perhaps readying themselves to leave.