Archives West Finding Aid

Founded in 1883, thirty-six years after the arrival of Latter-day Saint pioneers and thirteen years before Utah was admitted to the Union, the Alta Club holds a unique place not only in the immediate community bit in the entire Intermountain West.

Organized as a social club, "to present the comforts and luxuries of a home together with the attraction to its members of meeting each other in a pleasant and social way," the Alta Club from its beginning attracted the financial, industrial and social leaders of the west. Since these members have been intimately involved with the subsequent growth of the area, the club itself has closely reflected changes in taste, economics, and habits of the area's people.

The genesis of the club was the mining industry which created an affluent non-Mormon society in territorial Utah. The leaders in that establishment and continuing development of the industry were the founders and early members of the club. The religious majority (LDS Church) were excluded from membership initially because of the Latter-day Saint/non-Latter-day Saint conflict which kept the territory divided into two worlds for half a century. Many members of the Alta Club played important roles in diminishing the bitterness of the conflict to a point which permitted the territory to become a state and to function politically under the national system. Intentionally or unintentionally the club served as one of the instruments of accommodation by gradually admitting to membership Latter-day Saint business leaders and thereby encouraging social interaction between the two worlds.

Along with many other industries and institutions the mining industry, long a major contributor to the affluence of the Alta Club, was hard hit by the depression of the 1930s. Consequently, the club suffered. During that time, however, new ways of club financing, including the installation of slot machines and the employment of Waldo L. (Wally) Stewart as club manager rescued the club and put it on sound footing.

Among the Alta Club's characteristics which have remained constant throughout its life is its policy of strict confinement to sociability. There have been no efforts to involve the organization in religious, political or social issues. The club celebrated its centennial in March of 1983, still the unchallenged bastion of men who have proven themselves successful in business, industry and the professions.

Note: Material for this organizational history was taken from The Alta Club: 1883-1974 by O. N. Malmquist, Salt Lake City, privately published in 1974.