Murray, Utah, My Home Town

I grew up in an old style service station in the center of Murray, Utah.  My dad and his two brothers had a gas station called the Three Swede's Quality Oil.  It was at 5050 South State Street in Murray.  That was before there was a lot of natural gas used and people heated with fuel oil.  The station was also a fuel distributor and had trucks that delivered fuel oil to people.

From the time I was 7-8 years old I was working at that station every chance I got, at least I called it work.  Anyway by the time I was a teenager I had pumped gas in at least half the cars in Murray.  What is amazing is I still remember gas at 15 and 16 cents a gallon.

The Murray Liquor store is now on the site where the station was.

The elementary school I went to, Arlington Elementary, was right across the street from from the station and just a little north.  It is the Murray City Hall now.  We lived right up behind the elementary school  where there was a couple of old duplexes on Jones Court.  We lived in the one at 5000 Jones Court.

I don't know when they were built but they were old then.  Now they have a natural gas meter in front, when we were there we had a stove in the dining room, center of the downstairs that heated the whole place and it was with fuel oil.


Right out on Vine Street was the Murray First Ward Chapel.  That was where we used to go to church.  That old Chapel had a large stained glass window in the end that took up most of the end wall.  This window had a stained glass image of the Savior and I remember that someone had thrown a rock at it and broke the small pane that was one of the Savior's feet.

I don't know if they could not find anyone to redo the pane or if they did not want  to pay for what it would take but the foot had been replaced with a pink piece of glass.  It really did not look too natural.

The LDS Church sold the old First Ward Building a number of years ago to a private school and I noticed the window had been removed.  A new chapel was built up Vine Street about half a mile, right across from the entrance to Murray Park and the window was put into the new building.

The foot is the same.  I haven't done as yet but I intend to go to church in that chapel.  I spent a good number of my growing up years attending church beneath that window and I would like to again!