The Octagon House

In the early 1850s, Henry Larkin Southworth constructed one of the most distinctive buildings in pioneer Provo: a large, two-story, eight-sided structure remembered as the Octagon House. The building was much more than an architectural curiosity. From the beginning, Southworth designed it to combine his family's home with commercial and hospitality functions, making the Octagon an important stop in a growing frontier community. Its construction required substantial pioneer craftsmanship. Oversized adobe bricks formed walls approximately two feet thick. John Henry Smith, the young son of Apostle George A. Smith, hauled the adobe used in the building. Craftsmen Jeremiah Robey and Edwin Bunnell constructed floors, stairs, and interior woodwork using wooden pegs and dovetailed joints. The unusual eight-sided structure was topped by a windowed cupola, making it an unmistakable Provo landmark. The Octagon also contained Henry Southworth's mercantile business. Its residential portion functioned as both the Southworth family home and a way station for travelers using Utah's stage routes. Travelers could obtain meals and lodging while horses were cared for in a corral and stable behind the building. The basement contained a bakery, and the Southworth family's large garden provided fresh produce for guests. Even the furniture reflected the building's unusual shape. The dining room contained a specially constructed octagonal table. The building soon became connected with another important institution in pioneer Provo: the mail. Henry Larkin Southworth was appointed postmaster in 1861. The Octagon served as Provo's post office from 1861 until 1863 and again during 1875. For local residents, this meant that the unusual building was not simply a private residence or business. It became a place where people came to receive news and correspondence connecting Provo with communities across Utah Territory and the rest of the country. The Southworth family's fortunes changed dramatically during the late 1860s. Henry had borrowed a substantial amount of money from Provo merchant Benjamin Bachman, using the Octagon as collateral. Their agreement required repayment in wheat. That arrangement became disastrous after the grasshopper infestation of 1868 damaged crops throughout Utah Territory. With insufficient wheat available to satisfy the debt, Southworth was unable to fulfill the agreement. In 1870, Bachman foreclosed on the property. The Southworth family was forced from the Octagon, reportedly leaving with only one team of horses. Yet the building remained an important part of Provo. Benjamin Bachman leased the Octagon to Truman Swarthout, who operated it as a hotel during 1871 and 1872. Bachman subsequently leased the building to Provo's first Masonic lodge, known as Story Lodge. This gave the former pioneer residence and mercantile yet another role in Provo's expanding social life. The loss of the Octagon did not prove permanent for the Southworth family. In 1876, Henry's wife, Lucinda Kempton Southworth, made a successful investment in a Nevada mine. Profits from that investment enabled her to purchase the Octagon back from Benjamin Bachman. Lucinda returned to the mercantile business in 1878. By 1881, the Southworths were advertising boarding rooms in Provo's Territorial Enquirer, continuing the building's long association with travelers and lodging. The family eventually found still another commercial use for the building. The Southworths had business interests in Castilla Springs Resort near Spanish Fork. Their family enterprise included cigar making, and the cigar factory was eventually relocated from Castilla Springs to the Octagon in Provo. Few buildings in pioneer Provo could claim such a varied history. Over the decades, the Octagon had functioned as a residence, store, stage stop, post office, bakery, hotel, Masonic meeting place, boarding house, and cigar factory. Henry Larkin Southworth died on July 5, 1901. His funeral was held in the Third Ward Latter-day Saint meetinghouse directly north of the Octagon. The remarkable building survived for another quarter century. By 1926, however, Southworth's three surviving heirs concluded that the aging structure no longer met modern standards. The Octagon House was demolished. Its disappearance removed one of Provo's most distinctive pioneer landmarks. In 2012, the Daughters of Utah Pioneers erected Historical Marker #568 at the former site to preserve the building's story. Today there is no eight-sided adobe house to enter and no stagecoach waiting outside. Instead, the marker at 500 West and 100 North asks visitors to imagine the remarkable building that once occupied this corner and the many different roles it played during Provo's transformation from a pioneer settlement into a city.

Provo was established by Latter-day Saint settlers in 1849 and developed rapidly during the following decade. Early residents needed homes, stores, mills, schools, religious meeting places, transportation facilities, and communication networks. Henry Larkin Southworth's Octagon House emerged during this formative period in the early 1850s. Adobe was one of the most practical construction materials available to Utah's early settlers. Made primarily from earth and formed into bricks, it could be produced locally without transporting expensive building materials over long distances. The Octagon's two-foot-thick adobe walls represented a particularly substantial use of the material. The building's role as a stage way station reflects Provo's position within Utah Territory's developing transportation network. Before railroads and automobiles transformed travel, stage lines carried passengers, mail, and news between settlements. Providing meals, lodging, fresh horses, and stable facilities could make a roadside home and business an important transportation stop. Postal service was similarly vital. When Southworth became postmaster in 1861, the United States was entering the Civil War and Utah Territory remained geographically isolated from much of the country. Mail was one of the principal ways residents maintained connections across long distances. The Octagon's financial troubles also occurred during an era when Utah's economy remained heavily agricultural. Wheat could function not only as food but as a commodity used in trade and debt repayment. Crop destruction therefore had consequences extending far beyond individual farms. The building's later history demonstrates Provo's increasing social and economic diversity. A pioneer home became a hotel and then housed the city's first Masonic lodge before returning to the Southworth family's commercial use. By the time the Octagon was demolished in 1926, Provo had changed dramatically. Railroads, paved streets, modern commercial buildings, utilities, automobiles, and newer housing standards had made the frontier world in which the Octagon was constructed increasingly distant. Marker #568 now preserves the memory of that earlier Provo at the actual location where the unusual building once stood.