About
Whether you are a longtime resident of the Salt Lake area or have only just arrived, you may not realize how close you are to the monuments of our rich cultural past. These monuments are everywhere to be found, but they only partly reside in wood and steel and stone. The rest comes through in the lives of everyday people.​
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We are here to present you with an opportunity to save one of these monuments and consequently impact countless lives.
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Located at 742 W. South Temple Street in Salt Lake City, the Nettie Gregory Center is a recreational facility that has served many purposes for Salt Lakers since its opening in 1964. Today it awaits renewed service to Salt Lake’s west side with support from people like you.
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With your involvement, you will not only be saving history, but you will be making it too.
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Our Story
From early fur traders and slaves to free persons of varied backgrounds, the territory (and later state) of Utah has a lengthy history of African American inhabitants. Historical racial prejudices often limited black Utahns to certain trades and areas of habitation around the Beehive State generally and Salt Lake City in particular. These limitations led black Utahns to create their own community life and to pursue recreation within their homes, their private clubs, and especially their churches.
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This was the situation that William and Nettie Gregory discovered upon their arrival to Utah in the 1910s. William–a pullman porter for the Union Pacific railroad–had brought his new bride with him to Utah from Tennessee, hoping to start a new life after encounters with the Ku Klux Klan. Nettie, a teacher and musician, took to their new home with the same degree of committed civic engagement that she always did.
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“She started working with the young people right away,” William later recalled of that time. “There just wasn’t much wholesome recreation for the young folks down here on the west side back then.”
“[By] working to create a better neighborhood community, we extend our influence on our children’s lives. In effect, we create a ‘community of parents’ … which supports and guides our children.”
– James Laster (Dedicatory services for the Nettie Gregory Center, Nov. 1964)
We look to give new life to a building with a storied history by preparing it for use by future generations. The investment you make in this project will both preserve a legacy and provide needed amenities to families in an under-resourced area of our city.
Putting their heads together with friends and fellow congregants, the Gregorys saw the need for more accommodating facilities that their community–and particularly the local children–could use. William worked at acquiring land for this dream project, while Nettie labored with local charitable organizations and her sewing group–the Nimble Thimble Club–to raise funds through bake sales and community dinners.
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Little by little, the building slowly rose, with local black families providing the manual labor on top of the plumbing, electrical and masonry work in their off-hours. Decades after the seed was first planted, the dream came to fruition when the building was dedicated in 1964.
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As the first civic building in Salt Lake City built by its African American community in a time of segregation, the Nettie Gregory Center has gone on to serve as the site of parties and weddings, of education and intervention programs, and as the headquarters for Utah’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The countless people who have gone through its doors to learn and play since its opening embody the dream that the Gregorys envisioned, for both the old and the young of every color and creed have been welcome.
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​“My wife and I always felt that there should be complete equality there,” William said of the center’s purpose, “we wanted the center to serve everyone.”
As families moved out of the area in prior decades, the use of the building became haphazard, and now updates as well as repairs have become necessary. With the development of additional housing units in west Salt Lake City–and a subsequent inflow of families and children–we deem the time to be right for renewed use of the Nettie Gregory Center. Not only is it an important historical landmark for the Salt Lake and African American communities, but its central purpose of providing safe and wholesome recreation for young people remains a timely and vital need.
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And here is where you can make a difference.