Chances are you know the photo. Taken in 1932, it shows Summit County Sheriff Eph Adamson and Patrolman Sam Billings standing behind Billings’ Harley-Davidson motorcycle in front of the sheriff’s office at 509 Main Street. But the crowning touch is the pit bull perched on the seat of the motorcycle and posing – yes, posing – for the camera.
That iconic photo was the work of J.E. Jenkins, better known as Pop Jenks. In the early years of the 20th century Pop ran a photo studio on Main Street before getting into the restaurant business.
Sometime in the winter of 1986-87 I learned that Pop’s daughter, Thelma Uriarte, had an impressive collection of her father’s photographs. I approached Thelma where she worked, at First Security Bank (now Chase Bank) on Park Avenue, to see if she would be willing to share some of his photos with the Park City Museum. She invited me to the home in Highland Estates that she shared with her husband, Leon Uriarte, a former mayor of Park City. And, one memorable Sunday afternoon, she hauled out a black trunk containing hundreds of pieces of her father’s work.
I was flabbergasted. There were decades worth of prints and negatives going back to about 1915. People standing on a mountain of snow on Main Street. The medical staff in front of the Miners Hospital at its old location on Nelson Hill. The Silver King Coalition Building loading train cars with ore from the mine. A mid-1930s panorama of Main Street taken from Rossie Hill. The Park City High School band led by legendary band director Byron Jones marching up Main Street in full regalia.
That encounter led to an offer by Diane Balaban, the director of the Kimball Art Center (then on the corner of Park and Heber Avenues), to host an exhibit of his work in the center’s main gallery.
Pop Jenks often used large-format cameras, with negatives as large as 8 by 10 inches. The museum contracted with a Salt Lake City studio equipped to handle those huge negatives and enlarge them to make oversize prints. The detail in the photos was stunning.
The exhibit opened on September 4, 1987, attracting people who may not have set foot in the building since it was Kimball’s Garage back in the 1930s. “The exhibit was a huge success with people who remember Park City [of that era],” the Park Record reported on September 10.
Yes, the exhibit included that photo of Adamson, Billings, the motorcycle, and the pit bull. “Pop should have gotten a picture of Billings learning to ride that thing [the Harley],” John Murnin told the paper. “I remember watching him trying it out in Swede Alley. He was weaving all over.”
Credit: Park City Historical Society & Museum, Pop Jenks Collection
Thelma agreed to donate her father’s works to the museum, with the stipulation that he receive credit for photos that appeared in public. The museum also published a limited-edition soft-cover book dedicated to Jenkins and his work, with text by John Kinch and design by Don and Cha Cha Weller.
However, Thelma wasn’t thrilled with how everything worked out. She started to see copies of his work displayed in publications, on t-shirts, and in local stores, often without any credit to the photographer. From time to time I would run into her around town and she’d give me an earful.
Twenty-five years went by. The book went out of print. About 10 years ago, in a weak moment, I told Sandra Morrison, then the museum’s executive director, that I would write the text for a new biography of Pop Jenks, to be illustrated with his photos. I confess that I was motivated, in part, by a desire to make amends to Thelma.
In researching the book, I had three major sources: John Kinch’s original text, the Park Record archives (which by then were online), and Thelma, who was in her early 90s. For me, the highlights of that project were my conversations with Thelma, who could recall details of her family life going back to her childhood, and Katie Mullaly, whose book design provided a stunning platform for Pop’s photographs.
When the book, “Park City’s Pop,” was published, the museum scheduled a book signing for February 2, 2018. Although Thelma was spending her winters in Arizona at that time, she booked a flight back to Utah to attend the event. I thought, judging by the number of copies of the book that she reserved to give to friends and relatives, that she was happy with the result. And I’d like to think that we finally honored her father in the way she intended.
As you may already know, Thelma died on March 9 at the age of 101. She touched many lives, including mine, wherever she went.