Before there was a Brigham Young Academy (BYA) Building at Academy Square, BYA’s first schoolhouse was the Lewis Building (or Lewis Hall, evidently named after J.W. Lewis, who leased it from Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The Lewis Building was originally built as a warehouse and used as an amusement hall, but it became a place of learning when brothers Warren and Wilson Dusenberry rented it as an expansion to their “second Dusenberry school” in 1869.
\nBy the summer of 1870, the University of Deseret took notice of the Dusenberry school and incorporated it as the Timpanogos Branch of the University of Deseret. Young, who owned the Lewis Building, was keenly interested in the school’s success. When the Dusenberrys struggled to make ends meet, Young often waived their rent.
\nStarting in 1873, however, the Timpanogos Branch began buckling under financial hardship. Rent prices rose while enrollment stagnated, and the Dusenberries had to take on extra jobs to keep themselves afloat while the Timpanogos Branch struggled. In the spring of 1875, the Timpanogos Branch closed completely.
\nHowever, Young turned the closure into a new beginning. Having contemplated establishing a school in Provo for years, Young deeded the Lewis Building as a home for a new institution, Brigham Young Academy, and he hired Warren Dusenberry as a principal and Wilson Dusenberry as a teacher. The Lewis Building underwent repairs for the remainder of 1875. Brigham Young Academy opened for its first term in January 1876. Warren resigned as principal in April, and Karl G. Maeser replaced him as the Academy’s first long-term principal.
\nAlthough the young Brigham Young Academy now fully controlled the Lewis Building, it still struggled to keep financially afloat. Young’s deed voided rents as a burden, but enrollment was still down; in August 1876, BYA started its fall term with only ninety-seven students and about $100 in its balance. To stay solvent, BYA rented rooms for parties and concerts, even during school hours, which interrupted students’ studies. A year later, in August 1877, Young died, leaving it up to trustees to manage BYA.
\nYet the longer BYA survived, the more it thrived. In 1878, the school’s Academic Department, the only department for older students, split into four: Language, Polytechnical, Commercial (these three were taught at a high school level), and Scientific (for even more advanced students). In the late 1870s, BYA also organized a Normal Department, for teacher training. By 1880, over 300 students were enrolled, and in 1881, BYA awarded its first collegiate diploma to James E. Talmage, the future apostle-scientist.
\nTragedy struck when a fire destroyed the Lewis Building in 1884, leaving BYA without a schoolhouse. Reed Smoot, future apostle-senator, recalled saying to Principal Maeser, “Oh, Brother Maeser, the academy has burned.” Maeser rebuffed Smoot’s dismay. “No such thing,” Maeser said. “It’s only the building.”
\nBYA worked quickly to borrow and rent rooms for classroom use, and it lost only a day of classes, reconvening on Tuesday in whatever spaces could be secured in buildings around Provo. BYA was homeless until a new structure was built in 1892.
\nThe Lewis Building was gone, but Brigham Young Academy—now University—lived on. In recognition of the Lewis Building’s legacy, in 2004, This Is the Place Heritage Park built its Smoot Hall building as a replica of the original Lewis Building, BYA’s first home.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"The Lewis Building formerly stood at the corner of West Center Street and Third West, on the north side. Today, a cafe called Peace on Earth stands in approximately the same area. The Smoot Hall replica of the Lewis Building can be visited at This Is the Place Heritage Park, 2601 East Sunnyside Avenue, Salt Lake City, UT, 8410.","lede":"Built as a warehouse and rented out for concerts and parties, the Lewis Building was ultimately Brigham Young Academy’s first long-term schoolhouse, from 1876 until its destruction in a fire in 1884.","website":"","related_resources":["Bergera, Gary James and Ronald Priddis. Brigham Young University: A House of Faith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1985. Via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv0000berg.","Butterworth, Edwin Jr. Brigham Young University: 1,000 Views of 100 Years. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1975. Via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv00butt/.","Daines, Gordon. “Lewis Building–Brigham Young Academy’s First Home.” Special Collections Blog, July 8, 2009. L. Tom Perry Special Collections. https://scblog.lib.byu.edu/2009/07/08/lewis-building-brigham-young-academys-first-home/.","Hatch, Ephraim. Brigham Young University: A Pictorial History of Physical Facilities, 1875–2005. Provo, UT: Physical Facilities Division, Brigham Young University, 2005. Americana collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.","This Is the Place Heritage Park. “Smoot Hall at Brigham Young Academy.” Accessed December 31, 2021. https://www.thisistheplace.org/heritage-village/buildings/smoot-hall-at-brigham-young-academy.","Wilkinson, Ernest L., ed. Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years. Vol. 1. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1975. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv01wilk.","Young, Aretta to Evadna Young, January 28, 1884 (UA 179). University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/ltpsc/resources/upb_ua179."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/2ce9c3a2d1095d395ee4b624f9eb5d6f.jpg":{"id":2399,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"BYU students at Lewis","description":"While Brigham Young Academy’s first couple years were difficult in enrollment, Maeser and his colleagues proactively recruited and managed to bring in growing numbers of students. | [Lewis Building, ca. 1879]. Brigham Young University: 1000 Views of 100 Years collection (UAP 2 Folder 018). Courtesy of the University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BYUPhotos/id/74/rec/508.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/2ce9c3a2d1095d395ee4b624f9eb5d6f.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/85effcba0fa82eff11e6f360e93b4f86.jpg":{"id":2400,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Lewis at West Center Street","description":"The Lewis Building is the wide, two-story edifice at the far left. | In Edwin Butterworth Jr., Brigham Young University: 1,000 Views of 100 Years (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 7, via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv00butt/page/n23/mode/2up?q=lewis.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/85effcba0fa82eff11e6f360e93b4f86.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/71626ed28b0d06b778f58f054f9a550b.jpg":{"id":2401,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"The Lewis Building burned","description":"In his 1975 Brigham Young University: 1000 Views of 100 Years, Edwin Butterworth Jr. describes the Lewis Building fire as follows: “Students braved the heat to remove most of the furniture, books, and apparatus on the first floor… before the entire building was an inferno and salvage and firefighting both ceased” (18–19). | [Burned Lewis Building, 1884]. Brigham Young University: 1000 Views of 100 Years collection (UAP 2 Folder 018). Courtesy of the University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BYUPhotos/id/73/rec/2.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/71626ed28b0d06b778f58f054f9a550b.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/70159c59f942803dcf0b04533c8a8f3c.jpg":{"id":2402,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"“On the burning of the Brigham Young Academy”","description":"Aretta Young’s letter to her sister Evadna Young, written in the form of a poem and preserved here as a typescript copy, repeats a sentiment Reed Smoot attributed to Karl Maeser: “Perhaps someone has sent you word… the B.Y.A. burnt to the ground… But, Eva dear, it is not true… ’Twas just the house wherein we met—/the B.Y.A. is living yet!” | Young, Aretta to Evadna Young, January 28, 1884 (UA 179). Courtesy of the University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/ltpsc/resources/upb_ua179. | Aretta Young","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/70159c59f942803dcf0b04533c8a8f3c.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/0fb222f153380841805b8dc88b697d38.jpg":{"id":2403,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"“It is only the building”","description":"In Reed Smoot’s reminiscence, when faced with the burned out ruins of the Lewis Building, BYA principal Karl G. Maeser said, “It is only the building.” The fire was on Thursday night, and classes reconvened in other Provo buildings by Tuesday. | [S. S. Jones Department Store, ca. 1880s]. Brigham Young University: 1000 Views of 100 Years collection (UAP 2 Folder 018). Courtesy of the University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BYUPhotos/id/75/rec/1.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/0fb222f153380841805b8dc88b697d38.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/97c50cb25d3d1ab1f5019443cb81749f.jpg":{"id":2404,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Replica","description":"In 2004, This Is the Place Heritage Park unveiled its new Smoot Hall building, constructed as a replica of the Lewis Building which housed Brigham Young Academy over a century prior. | “Smoot Hall, Brigham Young Academy, Deseret Village, This is the Place Heritage Park, Salt Lake City, Utah.” Ken Lund, May 11, 2012. Via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/7187330164/in/photostream/. | Ken Lund","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/97c50cb25d3d1ab1f5019443cb81749f.jpg"}}}