#33 Salt Lake City Library

Nowadays it is most widely known as the old Hansen Planetarium, but this structure has been sitting here long before that housing thousands of books instead of stars. John Quakenbos Packard, who struck it rich in the mining industry, donated the land and the money to build the 3-story structure at a cost of about $100,000.  It was completed in 1905 and replaced the library that was located in the Salt Lake City and County Building.

In 1964 a new library was completed and this building was converted into the Hansen Planetarium at the request of Gail Plummer, a professor at the University of Utah, and with a $400,000 donation from Beatrice Hansen. The planetarium remained in operation until 2003, when the Clark Planetarium opened at the Gateway District just a few blocks west.

The O.C. Tanner company bought the building in 2007 for $1.2 million and then did an extensive $24 million restoration project.