The Pearl Billiard Parlor/The Club, constructed circa 1897, in Ogden, Weber County, Utah, is locally significant under Criterion A in the area of Social History and under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. The property has important ties to two themes of the NRHP-listed Lower 25th Street Historic District (NRIS# 78003260): ethnic development in Utah’s primary railroad city and social deviancy in Ogden. Due to the Art Moderne-style storefront remodel in 1939, the building was evaluated as ineligible/non-contributing in the 1978 historic district. However, the building contributes to the streetscape of the historic commercial district and has surviving interior features that represent social and ethnic development in Ogden for a period of significance between the date of construction, 1897, to the later remodel, 1939. The property is particularly significant in the area of Social History as an example of a speakeasy in the prohibition era, between 1920 and 1933, complete with a rare extant hidey-hole for liquor.
The Pearl Billiard Parlor, and later the Club, were both connected to a saloon in adjoining buildings during the period of significance but were mostly known for the relatively mild vices associated with billiard parlors and pool halls. The Greek families who owned the property managed to keep their businesses respectable during a period of general “seediness” on Ogden’s lower 25th Street. The property is individually eligible under the Multiple Property Submission, Commercial and Industrial Properties of Ogden, Utah 1847-1975. The period of significance for the Pearl Billiard Parlor/The Club is 1897 to 1939, within the following MPS contextual periods: “Growth of Commercial Enterprise and Industrialization, 1890-1928” and “Great Depression and Transition to a Defense-Based Economy, 1929-1955.” The property meets the architectural registration requirements of the second period. The property has historical significance within the early period of 1897 to 1939, particularly for the prohibition years between 1920-1933. The end date for the period of significance is 1939, the construction date for the Art Moderne/Streamline Moderne architectural significance.
The Pearl Billiard Parlor/The Club is significant at the local level under Criterion C in the area of Architecture as a surviving example of the architectural modernization of the storefronts of Ogden’s late 19th century commercial buildings, in particular the notorious lower 25th Street. The building is noteworthy as the only Ogden storefront to receive an Art Moderne or Streamline Moderne makeover. The modernized storefront was so distinctive that the historic property was dismissed as out-of-period for decades. The façade, the only portion of the building visible to the general public from the street, has all of the characteristics of an Art Moderne design with the restrictions of a modest, flat storefront: smooth surfaces, speed lines, and circular “porthole” windows filled with glass block.
On the interior are a number of surviving features from the late 1920s and 1930s: coved ceilings, rails and wainscoting, lighted restroom signs, and a prohibition-era hidey hole for bottles in the back room addition. The architectural significance of the 1939 remodel represents the continuing popularity of the Art Moderne and Streamline Moderne styles during the last years of the Great Depression. It also represents a rare example of a nautical streamlined, minimalist Art Moderne storefront in Utah. The property has good integrity for the period of significance and contributes to the streetscape and history of Ogden’s lower 25th Street neighborhood.