SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A historian’s hunch about what might be hidden within the walls of a Japanese church in Salt Lake City has led parishioners to uncover a century-old snapshot of a once-vibrant Japanese neighborhood now fighting for survival.
Elders at the 101-year-old United Church of Christ in Japan, one of two buildings remaining in the city’s Japantown, drilled holes through brick, concrete and rebar to remove a metal box from the building’s cornerstone. Its content tells the story of early Japanese immigrants to what is now an area of urban sprawl.
Local residents got their first look at these artifacts over the weekend when they removed from boxes a hand-stitched flag, a Bible, local newspapers in English and Japanese, the church’s articles of incorporation and a glitter-trimmed piece of paper with the Sunday school teacher’s handwritten name.
“You can see the thoughts, the hopes, the beliefs of the people in this community over 100 years ago. What they wanted is still happening in the heart of Salt Lake City,” Pastor Andrew Fleischman said in an interview with The Associated Press.
This Japanese Bible was given to founding member Lois Hide Hashimoto by her mother when she left her native Japan for the United States in the early 1900s. More than a century later, Hashimoto’s grandchildren Joy Douglas and Ann Poss held her Bible for the first time.
A handwritten inscription read: “To Lois Hyde from their mother, who has gone to America. June 20, 1906. ‘The Lord is our strength and our refuge.'” Also in the box was an English Bible that their father, then 13-year-old Eddie Hashimoto, had placed in a time capsule.
The Presbyterians knew their chapel was dedicated in the fall of 1924, but they did not know the exact date, November 2, until they opened the time capsule. This was discovered after Lorraine Kraus, a third generation member and former University of Utah historian, pointed out that time capsules were popular at the time the church was built. A subsequent radar scan confirmed the presence of a trapezoidal box within the concrete foundation.
For Lynn Ward, an elder at the church, the contents brought back childhood memories of walking through the bustling Japantown streets lined with fish markets, hotels, dry cleaners, restaurants and other Japanese-owned businesses. She recalled visiting the market with her mother. There, a merchant gave her mother chewy citrus candies wrapped in edible rice paper that melted in her mouth.
Salt Lake City’s Japantown, once 90 companies strong, was formed in the early 1900s when mining and railroad booms drew thousands of Japanese immigrants to northern Utah. According to the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance, the downtown area changed dramatically during World War II, and many community leaders were “harassed, detained, and sent to concentration camps.”
Japantown existed until the city expanded the massive Salt Palace Convention Center in the 1990s, wiping out most of the remaining businesses and distributing residents to the suburbs.
All that remains now are two religious centers (one Presbyterian, one Buddhist) surrounded by a few street signs, a small Japanese garden, a sports bar, a hotel, a convention center, and the home arena for Utah’s professional hockey and basketball teams.
For many church members, this time capsule is a reminder of their history as they fight to survive as Japantown threatens to disappear due to urban development. It also chronicles the resilience of minority and faith communities in a state whose largest religious group is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church.
The one-story church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, sits in the middle of a planned sports and entertainment district that is expected to bring a modern feel to the rapidly growing downtown.
Developers at Smith Entertainment Group vowed to respect the church’s needs when building the surrounding area. But church leaders fear the multibillion-dollar project will erase what remains of the local history of the Japanese American community.
Ward said she left the recent time capsule unveiling feeling empowered to show people that the Japanese community is valuable not only in the city’s past but also in its present.
“Our founding members believed that our community would still be able to find that time capsule in 100 years, and we believe that we will find it for another 100 years or so,” she told The Associated Press, noting that members are already brainstorming what to leave in their time capsule.
