Pacific Hotel
Known Name(s)
Pacific Hotel
Address
241 Rio Grande St. Salt Lake City, UT
Establishment Type(s)
Hotel
Physical Status
Demolished
Description
Pacific Hotel photo circa 1936 courtesy Salt Lake County Archives
Embry Chapel choir, Scenora Jenkins front right, Odgen Standard-Examiner, May 1, 1949
Detailed History
The Pacific Hotel on Rio Grande Street in Salt Lake City was built during the railroad era. It opened in 1910 within an easy walk of the Rio Grande and Union Pacific depots. The hotel was originally listed as “whites only” in the city business directory. In 1957, Laverne and Scenora Jenkins purchased the hotel and opened its doors to African American clientele. The couple had moved from Kansas City to Ogden around 1935 to take jobs with the railroad. According to the 1940 census, Laverne was a waiter with the Union Pacific and Scenora worked forty-eight hours each week at a nearby hotel. Scenora belonged to the Embry Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Embry congregation was the first Black church in Ogden, organized by J.C. Owens in May 1908.
Sources consulted:
Park Hotel,” Application form for National Register of Historic Places, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6740dp0.
Christine Cooper-Rompato, "Utah in the Green Book: Segregation and the Hospitality Industry in the Beehive State." Utah Historical Quarterly 88, no. 1 (2020), https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/utah_historical_quarterly_volume88_2020_number1/s/11140180.
United States Census, 1940, database with images, FamilySearch (ark:/61903/1:1:VT4D-719 : Fri Aug 05 00:18:05 UTC 2022), Entry for Scenora Jenkins and Laverne Jenkins.
Eric Stene, "The African-American Community of Ogden, Utah: 1910-1950" (1994). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 4526. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4526.
