Most Utah towns grew around a central block with a tabernacle at the heart of it. Provo did something different. Its downtown grew as a crossroads, where Center Street meets University Avenue, and the four corners of that intersection still hold four landmark buildings that tell the city's story better than any plaque. From that corner, Center Street runs west past a century of storefronts to one of the oldest commercial buildings in the valley.
This walking tour covers that stretch. It starts at the crossroads, visits each of the four corners, walks the storefront blocks of West Center Street, and ends at the old co-op store and Pioneer Park. It takes about an hour at an easy pace, follows public sidewalks the whole way, and needs nothing but comfortable shoes and a willingness to look up.
Before You Start
The district. The core of this walk is the Provo Downtown Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It covers about 25 acres: four blocks of Center Street, from 100 East to 300 West, and a block and a half of University Avenue. The listing counted 43 contributing buildings, and its periods of significance run from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth, with Classical Revival, Renaissance and Gothic Revival among the named styles. Our guide to Provo's historic districts covers this district alongside the city's residential ones.
The grid. Provo's address grid starts at Center and University. Every "North," "South," "East" and "West" address in the city counts from this intersection, which is why a downtown address such as 43 North University Avenue tells you it is just a short walk up from the corner.
The route. Start at the corner of Center and University, work around the four corners, walk east a block to see the district's edge if you like, then head west along Center Street to the co-op building and Pioneer Park. Return along the other side of the street to see the facades you walked past.
Parking and timing. Our downtown Provo parking guide covers the options. Weekday mornings are the quietest time for photographs, and Saturdays in season add the Provo Farmers Market at Pioneer Park, which makes a lively end point.
Stop 1: The Crossroads at Center and University
Stand on any corner of the intersection and turn slowly. The 1980 National Register nomination described this spot better than anyone since: two large Victorian commercial blocks, one with a clock tower, mark the two northern corners, while the Classical Revival City and County Building and the Gothic Revival Provo Tabernacle occupy the southeast and southwest corners. Commerce on one side of the street, government and faith on the other, all facing the same crossing.
That arrangement is the point of this whole walk. The nomination argued that Provo's commercial district was among the most architecturally legible in Utah because it formed a clear crossroads rather than the looser arrangement around a tabernacle block found in many Utah towns. You can still read it today. The buildings have changed hands and uses, and the traffic is heavier, but the four corners still frame each other the way they did a century ago.
Look, too, at the scale of the streets. Pioneer-era Utah towns were laid out with very wide streets, and Center Street and University Avenue give the corner buildings room to be seen from a distance. That is why the clock tower and the courthouse columns carry so well down the block.
The corner also holds a piece of university history. The school that became BYU started downtown, in a building near the Center Street corner that burned in 1884. The academy later moved north along University Avenue, and its restored building now houses the city library at Academy Square, which is the natural extension of this walk for anyone who wants more.
Stop 2: The Knight Block (Northeast Corner)
The Knight Block is the building with the clock tower, and it is the one most people photograph. Built in 1900 for the mining magnate Jesse Knight, it was designed by the architect Richard C. Watkins and occupies the addresses 1 to 13 East Center Street and 20 to 24 North University Avenue. It was individually listed on the National Register in 1977, before the surrounding district, and it is also on Provo's historic landmarks registry.
Stand back far enough to take in the whole facade. The building is three stories of red brick, with rows of arched windows on the upper floors, a heavy decorative cornice, the building's name carved into the parapet, and a clock tower rising at the corner where the two streets meet. At street level, the storefronts have changed with every generation of tenants, which is normal for a commercial block and part of its story. The upper floors are where the original design is easiest to read.
The Knight Block shows what a commercial building was supposed to do in a turn-of-the-century Western town: announce that the place had arrived, give businesses a prestigious address, and anchor the corner so that anyone coming into town knew where the center was.
Stop 3: The Northwest Corner
Across University Avenue from the Knight Block, the northwest corner holds the second of the two Victorian commercial blocks the nomination described. Together, the pair gave the north side of the crossroads its commercial character, and they are a good place to practice the most useful habit on this walk: look above the storefronts. The ground floors of downtown buildings were remodeled again and again as tenants changed, but the upper floors often keep their original windows, brickwork and cornices.
Stop 4: The Provo City Center Temple (Southwest Corner)
The building on the southwest corner is one of the most remarkable in Utah: an exterior that is well over a century old wrapped around an interior that is younger than most of the students walking past it.
This was the Provo Tabernacle, the Gothic Revival meeting hall that the nomination placed on the southwest corner. It was the second tabernacle on the block, not the first. In the early hours of Friday, December 17, 2010, a fire gutted it, leaving the brick walls standing around a burned-out interior. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chose to rebuild, preserving the historic exterior and building a new interior within it, and the building was dedicated as the Provo City Center Temple in three sessions on Sunday, March 20, 2016.
Visiting. The interior is reserved for Church members who hold a current temple recommend, so most visitors will not go inside. The grounds, however, are open to everyone and free, and they are among the most photographed spots downtown, with landscaped gardens and a clear view of the rebuilt building. Be respectful: the grounds are a place of worship, not a park, and you may see wedding parties being photographed there. Our full story of the tabernacle fire and the temple covers the building's history in detail.
Stop 5: The Historic Utah County Courthouse (Southeast Corner)
On the southeast corner stands the Neoclassical Historic Utah County Courthouse, originally the Provo City and County Building, at 51 South University Avenue. Its tall columns and pediment were meant to give county and city government a building as dignified as any in the state, and they still do. It was completed in the 1920s, which makes it a generation younger than the Knight Block across the street, and the change in style between the two says a great deal about how the city saw itself as it grew.
Take a moment to compare the corners. The Knight Block is brick, busy and commercial. The courthouse is stone, symmetrical and civic. The temple across University Avenue is Gothic and religious. The three styles standing within sight of one another are the clearest lesson in architectural history the valley offers.
The courthouse is still a public building. Utah County rents it for weddings, school dances, reunions and meetings, which means that on a weekend evening you may see a bridal party coming down its steps. Check with the county before planning to go inside, since access depends on what is scheduled.
A Short Detour East
The district's east edge is at 100 East. A block east of the crossroads, Utah County's modern Administration Building sits at 100 East Center Street, a reminder that county government has spread well beyond the old courthouse. The detour is short, and it gives you a good view back down Center Street toward the crossroads, with the clock tower on the right and the mountains rising beyond.
Stop 6: The Storefront Blocks of West Center Street
Back at the crossroads, head west. The blocks of Center Street between University Avenue and 300 West are the commercial heart of the district, lined with two- and three-story buildings that have housed stores, offices, banks and restaurants for well over a century.
How to read the buildings. Look above the shop windows. The original upper-floor windows, the patterns in the brick, the decorative cornices and the names or dates sometimes set into the parapets are where the history shows. The ground floors are a different story. The nomination noted that remodeling with sheet metal and stucco had done the most damage to the district's architectural character, as owners covered old facades to look modern. Where you see a flat, blank upper facade next to an ornate one, you are often looking at a building that was covered rather than rebuilt, and even then the nomination recorded plans to restore some of the covered facades.
What is here now. Center Street has become Provo's dining street, with historic buildings, sidewalk seating, art galleries between the restaurants, and mountain views at either end. Our Center Street dining guide covers the restaurants block by block, and it notes that several places people associate with Center Street actually sit a few steps away on University Avenue. The Provo Art Stroll turns the galleries and studios along the street into an evening walk of its own.
Take your time. This is the stretch of the walk where it pays to cross the street now and then. Facades are easiest to see from the opposite sidewalk, where you can take in a whole building at once rather than craning up from its doorway.
A Field Guide to the Facades
You do not need an architecture degree to enjoy this walk, but a few terms make the buildings easier to read.
The cornice. The projecting band along the top of a commercial building, often made of pressed metal or carved stone, that finishes the facade the way a frame finishes a picture. A heavy, decorated cornice was a sign that an owner wanted the building to be noticed.
The parapet. The low wall that rises above the roofline at the front. Builders often set the building's name or a date into it, which is why looking up can tell you who built a block and when.
Arched windows. Rows of rounded window heads on the upper floors are a signature of Victorian commercial buildings. Count them, and notice how they repeat to create a steady rhythm along the street.
Pilasters. Flat columns set into a wall, dividing a facade into bays. They suggest the classical orders without holding anything up, and they give a long building a sense of order.
The storefront and transom. The ground floor was designed for big display windows, with a row of smaller transom windows above them to let light deep into the store. Many transoms were covered over during remodels, and a strip of blank panel above a shop window often hides one.
Ghost signs. Faded painted advertisements on side walls, revealed when a neighboring building comes down or a later coat of paint wears away, are small windows into what the street once sold.
Style clues. A building with columns, a pediment and strict symmetry, like the courthouse, is Classical. Pointed arches and vertical emphasis, like the tabernacle's, signal Gothic. Brick, arches and exuberant cornices point to the Victorian commercial style of the Knight Block and its neighbors.
Stop 7: The Civic West End
Near the west end of the walk, the character of Center Street shifts from historic commercial blocks to the city's modern civic and arts buildings. The Covey Center for the Arts, at 425 West Center Street, is Provo's performing arts venue, home to concerts, theater and dance, and our live theater guide covers what plays there. A few doors west, Provo City Hall sits at 445 West Center Street, and our City Hall guide explains what happens inside and how to take part in local government.
These newer buildings are part of the story too. A downtown that keeps its government, its arts and its shops close together stays alive, and the choice to put City Hall and the arts center on Center Street keeps the old street at the center of civic life.
Stop 8: The Provo West Co-op Building
Across the street, at 466 West Center Street, stands one of the most historically significant buildings on the walk, and one of the easiest to miss. The Provo West Co-op building was built around 1866 and remodeled around 1890, and it is the oldest surviving example of the cooperative stores established under the church-sponsored merchandising movement.
That movement shaped nineteenth-century Utah. Church leaders encouraged communities to organize cooperative stores so that local people, rather than outside merchants, would own the businesses that supplied them. Its name hints that it was one of more than one in Provo, and it is the oldest surviving example of the type. It predates everything else on this walk, including the Knight Block, the courthouse and the tabernacle, which makes it the best place to imagine what Center Street looked like when Provo was still a pioneer town.
Stop 9: Pioneer Park
The walk ends at Pioneer Park on West Center Street. In season, the park hosts the Provo Farmers Market on Saturdays from early June through the end of October, with Utah-grown produce alongside baked goods, honey and food stands, and the market publishes a parking map for visitors. On a market Saturday, start or finish the walk here. On other days, the park is a quiet place to sit and look back east along Center Street toward the crossroads you started from.
Optional Extensions
The Hines Mansion. One block south of Center Street, at 383 West 100 South, the Hines Mansion is downtown Provo's long-standing historic inn, an 1895 Victorian mansion designed by the architect of the Utah State Capitol. Our Hines Mansion guide tells its story.
Academy Square. Walk north on University Avenue to the restored academy building that now houses the Provo City Library, a fitting place to end a day of Provo history. Our library guide covers the building and what the library offers.
The residential districts. The historic homes east of downtown fill a much larger district of their own; our historic districts guide explains where they are and what to look for.
Tips for the Walk
Go early or go late. Morning and early evening light is kind to brick and stone, and the sidewalks are quieter before the lunch crowd.
Look up, then cross over. The upper floors hold the history, and the opposite sidewalk gives you the best view of them.
Respect working buildings. The temple grounds are a place of worship, the courthouse is a government building, and the storefronts are private businesses. Take photos from public sidewalks and step aside for customers and wedding parties.
Make it a meal. Plan the walk around breakfast, lunch or dinner on Center Street, or finish with ice cream a few steps up University Avenue.
Bring the kids. Children enjoy the clock tower, the temple gardens and a game of spotting dates and names carved into the buildings, and the flat, short route suits strollers.
Accessibility. The route follows flat public sidewalks, which suit wheelchairs and strollers, and the temple grounds have their own paths.
The Short Version
Start at Center Street and University Avenue, where the address grid begins and four landmarks frame the crossroads: the Knight Block with its clock tower on the northeast corner, a second Victorian commercial block on the northwest, the Historic Utah County Courthouse on the southeast and the Provo City Center Temple, the rebuilt tabernacle, on the southwest. Walk west through the storefront blocks of the Provo Downtown Historic District, looking above the shop windows for the original architecture, past the Covey Center and City Hall to the Provo West Co-op building, the oldest surviving pioneer co-op store, and finish at Pioneer Park. It takes about an hour, it is flat, and the temple grounds are open to everyone.
Related Guides
- Provo's Historic Districts
- The Provo Tabernacle Fire and the Temple
- Center Street Dining Guide
- A Short History of Provo
- The Provo Art Stroll
- Downtown Provo Parking
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Provo's historic downtown?
What is the Knight Block?
Can you go inside the Provo City Center Temple?
What happened to the Provo Tabernacle?
What is the old building on the southeast corner of Center and University?
How long does the Center Street walking tour take?
What is the Provo West Co-op building?
Where should I park for a downtown Provo walk?
