Knight, Jesse, House

About this property

The Jesse Knight House, also known as the Knight Mansion, is a historic house in Provo, Utah, United States built for Jesse Knight. It was built in 1905, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. This home was designated to the Provo City Historic Landmarks Register on June 19, 1996. Perhaps the wealthiest man in Provo at the time, Jesse Knight was born in 1845 in Nauvoo, Illinois. Knight's family migrated west, and reached Utah in 1850. Eighteen years later Knight married Amanda McEwan and soon began a ranch in Payson, Utah. Following an impression that he had, Knight began a mining operation in the Eureka area and became rich. He subsequently bought other mines, founded a bank, purchased real estate in Provo, bought the Provo Woolen Mills, and started farming and cattle interests in Canada. Throughout all of these efforts Jesse remained an active supporter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his mines were called the "cleanest mining camps in the west" (Utah State Historical Society p. 2). Knight died in 1921, designating much of his amassed fortune to BYU and various other institutions. Two-and-a-half storeys tall, the Jesse Knight House was built in the Colonial Revival Style. Possessing a symmetrical facade, the detailing of the home exhibits "a broad entablature with a boxed cornice with egg and dart ornament and dentils on the frieze, swan's neck pedimented dormers, Ionic capitals on quoins that are meant to resemble pilasters, pilasters on the corners of the dormers and flanking the first floor windows, and the Ionic columns" (Utah State Historical Society p. 2). Built between the years 1893 and 1908 in Provo, Utah, this group of Victorian mansions are historically significant and represent not only fine architecture but some of the most successful men of the city and state at the time. These mansions include the Charles E. Loose House, the William H. Ray House, the Knight-Allen House, the John R. Twelves House, the Jesse Knight House, the Knight-Mangum House, and the Thomas N. Taylor House. All of these homes derive from the high style: Eastlake, Shingle, Craftsman, Italianate, Classical, Moorish, Colonial, and Romanesque. Made primarily of brick, these homes exhibit the finest architecture and most ornate detailing to be found in the city of Provo. === Jesse Knight and the Tintic Mining Industry === The successful commercial mining of precious metals and minerals transformed Utah's economy from basically an agrarian base to a more industrialized state. Within this development the Tintic Mining District, located approximately 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Provo, was founded in 1869 and by 1899 became the leading mining center in Utah with a value of output placed at $5 million. A central figure in Tintic success was Jesse Knight and the Knight family who resided in Provo. Jesse Knight attained wealth with his Humbug mine in the mid-1890s. The large silver producer allowed Knight to develop other mines in the East Tintic area. Knightsville grew around the workings and became touted as the only saloon-free, prostitute-free, privately owned mining camp in the U.S. His strict adherence to doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made the town one inhabited primarily by members of that Church.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Utah County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Utah County.

More historic places in Utah

Browse all historic places in Utah.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Utah history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.