Park City's miners usually built their homes near the canyons in which they worked. Poison Creek Cottage is a perfect example of this, located near the mouth of Ontario Canyon (named for the Ontario mine). Park City records show that the first part of the house was built in 1880. Like other miner's houses, it was a very simple affair, rectangular in design. The original house had only two rooms.
Over the years, the house was added on to. In a photograph circa 1920, a kitchen had been most clumsily added — the wall discovered and retained during the cottage's reconstruction is currently the inside wall of the bathroom. Many years later, a bathroom was added, and in the 1970s a sunroom was added to the front.
Striking, too, are what living conditions must have been like. The Ontario Mill, whose remnants can still be seen from the cottage's front porch, once belched unceasing clouds of toxic fumes. The noise, the pollution, and the smell must have been unbelievable. The Park City Museum holds a panoramic photo — a montage of five photographs — showing Sandridge enveloped in a cloud of smoke, with Poison Creek Cottage visible in the scene.
The Name
Poison Creek Cottage is named for the seasonal stream which runs immediately below the property. The stream was once called Silver Creek, home to an impressive collection of native Utah trout. Mining operations so thoroughly polluted it that locals began to call it Poison Creek — one of the processes used to leach silver from ore used cyanide. There is a move afoot to restore the name Silver Creek, but locals are having none of it. Poison Creek it is.
The "Gone with the Wind" Poster
Miners were poor, and used anything available as insulation for their homes. During the remodeling of the cottage, workers discovered nylon stockings, newspapers from the 1920s, rags, and sawdust in the walls. One day, a prized find emerged: two original Gone with the Wind posters, unceremoniously nailed into the side wall of the kitchen and covered with a second layer of wood to keep out the wind and cold — undisturbed for over sixty years.
The posters were taken to a gallery in town and framed. Many offers to sell them have been refused since, as they represent an integral part of the cottage's history. The poster now hangs in the guest bedroom.
Sandridge
No one knows exactly how Sandridge came to get its name. Some old-timers say it was because of the sandy ridge found near the Ontario Mill — though anyone who digs into the ground will likely find rocks rather than sand. Sandridge was historically an enclave of northern European and Scandinavian miners.
Park City's mining neighborhoods were highly segregated in the early days: the Irish lived in Daly Canyon, townspeople in the town itself, and Chinese workers near China Bridge — immediately below Poison Creek Cottage, where the China Bridge parking structure stands today.