Today, Kimball Terrace is Park City’s premier high-end event space. Located in the heart of downtown, the venue offers stunning rooftop views of the surrounding mountains and charming old town Main Street. For decades, Kimball Terrace has been well-known as the go-to spot for hosting major events like the Sundance Film Festival, VIP parties, screenings, and other exclusive gatherings.
However, Kimball Terrace has a hidden history, one that is as old and strange as the story of Park City itself.
Mormons and Miners
Up until the 1860s, Park City wasn’t much of what you could call a “town.” There was nothing but aspen groves and open meadows along the Wasatch Back. But on the other side of the mountains, in the Salt Lake Valley, the newly-arrived Mormon population was starting to boom.
That fact was not lost on a man called Colonel Patrick Connor, commander of the federal troops at Fort Douglass in the foothills east of Salt Lake City, Colonel Conner was openly contemptuous of his Mormon neighbors. In fact, he referred to Salt Lake City as “a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics and whores.” Suspicious of the control that Brigham Young and the LDS church had in the territory, Connor wanted to dilute the Mormon population and weaken the church’s social and political hold. His plan was to attract non-Mormon “gentiles” to the area. He encouraged his troops (many of whom were veterans of the California gold rush) to scour the Utah mountains in search of gold or other valuable minerals.
Those efforts soon paid off when soldiers from Fort Douglas found a deposit of silver and lead just south of modern-day Park City. Meanwhile, other prospectors found several more deposits in the area, and the rush was on!
In 1868, the first mining claim was filed in Park City, and within a couple of years, local silver mines were ramping up production. Just as Colonel Conner had hoped, the mines drew a steady stream of non-Mormons to the Utah territory.
But it was Mormons and Mormon leaders who would play the biggest roles in Park City’s growth.
The Kimballs
In 1862, Mormon pioneer William H. Kimball (oldest son of Heber C. Kimball) built the Kimball Stage Stop near Park City at a place that would come to be known as Kimball Junction. The stage stop was an important station on the Overland Trail that carried passengers and mail from the East. On the site, Kimball also built a hotel that earned an excellent reputation for its food served by Kimball’s multiple wives.
The hotel’s impressive list of guests included poet Walt Whitman, publisher Horace Greeley, and humorist Mark Twain. In fact, after his stay at the Kimball Stage Stop and his tour of Park City’s booming silver mining industry, Twain famously observed, “It takes a gold mine to run a silver mine.”
In addition to continuing to run their father’s stage station, two of William’s sons (Burton and Robert) bought a livery stable in downtown Park City in 1886. Their horses and carriages helped support Park City’s mining industry for years. But as the livery business became obsolete with the introduction of automobiles, the Kimballs converted their stables into Kimball’s Garage in 1929. That structure stood at the corner of Heber and Park Avenue for the next 43 years.
Kimball Art Center
By the 1920s, the mining industry was drying up, the price of silver had plummeted, and Park City faced a huge problem. The Great Depression was about to put the final nail in the coffin for Park City’s mining hopes. The city’s population dwindled until it was on the verge of becoming a ghost town. But Park City refused to accept the fate of so many past mining towns of the American West.
Instead, the mining companies that owned rights to the mountains over Park City were beginning to ask, “What if we looked at these mountains differently?” That led to a textbook case of rebranding the whole city. Park City quickly rebuilt itself from a rough-and-tumble mining community into a world-class ski destination. Within half a century, the town had become a premier site for year-round recreation, culture, and art.
The property on Heber Avenue evolved right along with the city. In 1976, the Kimball family converted their iconic Kimball Garage into the Kimball Art Center, a non-profit community center for the visual arts. Five years later, the Sundance Film Festival came to town.
The Kimball Art Center became a focal point for Park City's artistic community. It attracted major artists and art lovers by hosting art shows, community classes, the annual Kimball Arts Festival, and other events.
Eventually, the success of the Kimball Art Center allowed it to move to a specially designed building of its own, and the historical building was ready to enter its next stage.
Kimball Terrace
When the Kimball Art Center moved to its present location, developers wanted to renovate and expand the building on Heber Avenue. Their plans called for a second floor that would serve as a luxury event space. Since Culinary Crafts had already catered high-end events in the Art Center for years, developers approached them for ideas of how they could create the ideal event venue.
One of the top priorities for the new venue was to take advantage of the spectacular views. The new Kimball Terrace building included a 270-degree wrap-around terrace boasting panoramic views of historic Main Street on the east side and Park City’s gorgeous mountain slopes on the west. Floor to ceiling windows guarantee that guests can enjoy the spectacular views regardless of the weather (which can be fickle on the Wasatch Back). Guests would feel like they were in a magical snow globe as they luxuriated in the spacious ballroom and watched the snowflakes fall outside.
Another key aspect of the new Kimball Terrace was its open, neutral space that could easily be converted to match any client’s vision. The sleek, contemporary design means that we can cram the space with color and excitement or keep it simple and spare—whatever suits your style.
Since our inception, Kimball Terrace has relied on Culinary Crafts as its exclusive caterer. Culinary Crafts is the top caterer in Utah, having won an astonishing 27 Best of State awards as well as numerous national and international awards. Working in tandem with Culinary Crafts, we have had the pleasure of staging so many unforgettable events at Kimball Terrace, from corporate events to destination weddings to Sundance exclusive parties to Team USA watch parties.
If we ever have the pleasure of hosting your party or event, we hope the experience will be all the more pleasurable for you now that you know the history of Kimball Terrace. These beautiful mountains and ski slopes outside the window, this rustic Main Street below the balcony, the artwork gracing the spaces, even the name above our door…they’re all part of our story. They are our hidden history.