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(Salt Lake City, Utah) -- Sandwiched between
2100 South on the north; 1300 East on the West; I-15 on the south;
and 2000 East on the East, Sugar House Park is 180 acres of green
space situated in urban Salt Lake City. Managed and operated by
the Sugar House Park Authority, the park  provides
solace and recreation opportunities for thousands of county residents.
Activities include playgrounds, picnic areas, soccer fields and
lots of green space. In addition to the use by picnickers, soccer
players and joggers, this park has become a major community gathering
point for fireworks in July and tubing in the winter.
The park site historically was a penal institution
for the state of Utah. For nearly a century, the walled facility
was a territory and then a state prison. First constructed in 1854,
the facility was abandoned in 1951, when the prisoners were moved
to the Point of the Mountain prison. One hundred and eighty acres
were turned over to Salt Lake City and county for a park and 30
acres to the Salt Lake City Board of Education for a school. The
buildings and wall surrounding the prison were demolished to make
way for the new public facilities.
Parley’s Creek bisects the park, entering
near the eastern extremity of the park via a 7-foot diameter culvert.
Parley’s Creek winds its way through the center of the park
until it enters the flood detention pond near the western edge of
the park. During low flow stages of Parley’s Creek, the pond
serves as a duck pond, controlled at its western edge (on the east
side of the lower road) by a concrete overflow structure and wood
slat headgate. During flood flow periods of the year, the pond serves
as a flood detention basin, controlled by a flood control spillway
and hydraulically operated headgate at 1300 East. These control
structures were installed in 1981.
During these high flow periods of the year when
flows are controlled by the flood control structure at 1300 East,
the pond fills thus flooding the lower road and some of the remaining
lower park area. This was the case during the 1983 flood when this
detention basin became the primary line of defense against flooding
1300 South Street from State Street to the Jordan River. This large
flood control detention basin can store up to 80 acre-feet of stormwater.
Even during minor storms this detention basin becomes the first
place where the City Crews try to control and manage the flood flows
through the City’s drainage system.
The flood water from Parley’s Canyon
flows into the detention basin, and then disappears under 1300 East
to surface again on the west side of 1300 East. At approximately
10th East the creek flows into a stormdrain, not to surface again
until the Jordan River. The detention basin is an important part
of Salt Lake County’s flood control system. The detention basin
stores water during high run-off periods and during storm events
that if the runoff is not detained, causes downstream flooding.
The detention basin is operated in unison with the detention basin
located in the southeastern portion of Liberty Park. Stormwater
is impounded in the two detention ponds during the peak flow period,
and released slowly to keep the stormdrain pipe from overflowing.
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