Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 73001862 Added to NRHP 20 March 1973 | Built 1871 (1871) Opened 1871 | |
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Ephraim united order cooperative building top 9 facts
The Ephraim United Order Cooperative Building was built in 1871-72 to house a Mormon cooperative store in Ephraim, Utah. The store was established to avoid trading with "gentile" (non-Mormon) merchants, and sold merchandise from the ZCMI co-op in Salt Lake City. The two-story stone building housed to co-op stone on the ground floor and a meeting hall on the upper level. In 1888 the Sanpete Stake Academy was established, using the meeting hall for classes; it became Snow College in 1917.
The front of the building is clad in white oolitic Sanpete limestone on the front with coarser building stone on the other elevations. A steeply-pitched roof runs from front to back with bracketed eaves and eave returns over the three-bay front elevation. The side elevations are four bays wide, with a two-story extension to the rear. The building features the inscription "Ephraim U.O. Mercantile Institution" and a beehive surrounded by "Holiness to the Lord" in an arched panel on the building's front gable. A similarly-constructed stone granary stands nearby on the site.
The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 20, 1973. After restoration work the store is operated as a gift shop.