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St. George Utah Walking Tour
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The Thomas Judd House was built around 1875 and used to stand in the 200 block of S. 200 East St. in St. George. The one-and-a-half story house is constructed of adobe with plaster sheathing scored to resemble stones. The house was disassembled and moved to a vacant lot in 1986 to save it from destruction before the block was redeveloped. The house was reassembled in 1991 on a property in St. George called Green Gate Village that already contained other Judd family early twentieth century. The Green Gate Village complex fronts onto both Tabernacle Street and 100 West; the Thomas Judd House was placed to the rear of the Thomas Judd Store building (62 Tabernacle, also a Clio entry), near the northeast corner of the complex. The Thomas Judd House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, when it was still in its original location. It has become Green Hedge Manor, an inn.

Thomas Judd House in original location in 1977 photo by K. Powell, west facade

Thomas Judd House in original location in 1977 photo by K. Powell, west facade

Thomas Judd House in 1977 photo by K. Powell, looking southeast

Thomas Judd House in 1977 photo by K. Powell, looking southeast

Thomas Judd Sr. was a native of England who converted to the Mormon faith and emigrated to Utah. He served as a bugler in the Navajo Indian Wars in 1866 to 1870. In 1880, the 34-year-old shared the home in St. George with his wife, Mary J. (29); children Sarah E. (8), George (6), and Thomas Jr. (1); and two servants named Joseph Grey (18, a native of Scotland) and Miss E.W. Miles (15, the housekeeper, a native of England). While Mary's parents had been born in England, she was a native of Missouri; her children were born in England or Utah.

Thomas Judd Sr. and two other St. George locals set up a store in 1875 known as Wooley, Lund and Judd. The store was in competition with another local enterprise set up by the Mormons in their quest for self-sufficiency. Judd and his partners were pegged for official church missions in 1876, which would have essentially closed the store. The men worked out an arrangement with Brigham Young that Judd would return to England to try to recruit more converts to settle in Utah, another partner (Wooley) would travel for an American mission, and the other partner (Lund) would stay in St. George and run the store. Wooley and Judd returned from their missions in 1878.

Thomas Judd Sr. served as the president of the Garden Club and encouraged the growing of crops for self-sufficiency and as a method of paying for goods without cash. He planted the block - which originally contained only his house - with grape vines, almond trees, and fig trees; some of the fruit trees and lilacs were still evident in the 1970s. He leased a local cotton factory for five years in the 1890s. Thomas Judd Sr. sold the house to George E. Miles in 1900 and moved to a new house elsewhere in town; Judd Sr. died in 1922.

George E. Miles was born in England in 1866 and was married around 1896 to Josephine (born in Utah in 1866). In 1900, Miles worked as a store clerk and owned the home free of a mortgage. The household in St. George included the couple's children, George J. (3) and Henry (5 months, both born in Utah), and the widowed mother of George E., Jane Mary Miles (age 63, born in England and emigrated to the U.S. in 1878). George E. Miles became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1894. He worked as the city recorder in St. George in 1920 and shared the house with his wife, Josephine (both age 53), and children George J. (23), Henry J. (20), Annie J. (18), Mary J. (16), Walter (14), and Maurice (12). Henry J. worked as a farm laborer but the other children were note employed. George E. and Josephine lived alone in the house, which was valued at $2,000, in 1940. George E. also served as justice of the peace and juvenile judge for a number of years but was retired by 1940. He was a locally well-known public speaker whose voice carried with such force that he shunned the use of a microphone. Miles lived in the house until the age of 103 and died in 1970.

The Thomas Judd house was listed in the National Register for its ties to Judd and Miles and for its architectural style. The house, T-shaped in plan, used to stand with the wider portion of the T facing S. 200 East St. The front of the house contained a living room and sitting room while the rear ell contained a kitchen, family room and a bathroom. The bedrooms were upstairs. The design of the wood trim along the dormer windows and cornice - called a "Dixie dormer" - is distinctive and peculiar to southern Utah. The Dixie dormer has been noted in 25 homes in eight Southern Utah towns.

Other local pioneer settlers' homes also were moved to Green Gate Village to preserve them from destruction (see the link below for the walking tour brochure). The Thomas Judd House is being used as an inn known as Green Hedge Manor.

Historic Village Properties LLC. Self Guided Historic Village Tour, Green Gate Village Inn. Accessed September 8th 2020. https://wchsutah.org/businesses/green-gate-village-brochure.pdf.

Powell, A. Kent. Roberts, Allen D.. NRHP Nomination of Thomas Judd House. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1977.

U.S. Census. Household of Thomas Judd in St. George, Utah, enumeration district 93, dwelling 57, family 60. Washington, DC. United States Bureau of the Census, 1880.

U.S. Census. Household of George E. Miles in St. George, Utah, enumeration district 0175, dwelling 262, family 278. Washington, DC. United States Bureau of the Census, 1900.

U.S. Census. Household of George E. Miles in St. George, Utah, enumeration district 0231, dwelling 325, family 327. Washington, DC. United States Bureau of the Census, 1920.

U.S. Census. Household of George E. Miles at 239 South 200 East, St. George, Utah, enumeration district 27-21, dwelling 366. Washington, DC. United States Bureau of the Census, 1940.

Wadsworth, Reuben. "Thomas Judd's Store Day." St. George News (St. George, UT) October 7th 2018. , Feature sec.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1227053

https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1227053