Chesterfield

In the late 1800's land in Utah was getting crowded, and so Bountiful, Utah, Bishop Chester Call and his family and friends moved to an undevelopoed area in the Upper Portneuf valley and founded the town of Chesterfield.

Mormon pioneers built their towns with a plan, designed by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is characterized by a strict layout of grided streets oriented to the cardinal points of the compass, with the blocks the same size and the streets the same widths.

According to Gary Hatch, a descendent of those early pioneers, "they platted this townsite irrespective of where mountains went or whatever, whether there were roads or not. It worked better, a lot better in theory than in practice."

A harsh climate and the brutal economics of the 1920's and '30's drove away most of its inhabitants. Chesterfield became, in effect, an agricultural ghost town. But it left us a snap shot of a cultural and architectural era.

The town had its amusement hall, its tithing office, store and a mixture of homes. But the crowning glory was the meeting house. Built to reflect the elegant design of the Bountiful tabernacle, the meeting hall reproduces the Greek Revival architecture on a much lesser scale, with the four columns in the front and the semi-circular plaque on the font.

"Out of the 522 settlements that the Mormons settled, this is the only one where we don't have new structures interfering with the old," says Gary Hatch.

That's why supporters are restoring Chesterfield, trying to preserve the buildings and keeping the pristine views and the feel of a time long past.

"There's something about it," says Shirley Simons. "Chesterfield itself isn't very beautiful, but it has a spirit that's beyond comparison."