The Ward Hall

The Ward Hall stood on the southwest corner of the Public Square. It was constructed in 1891 as a town hall to accommodate religious services, community meetings, school classes, recreation and amusement. The floor of the hall was elevated and completely separate from the walls; dancers described the floor as being alive because one could feel it vibrating. The facility was improved and remodeled a few times with a perpendicular extension added to the north end of the building. , The Kanab Chapel was built in 1923-24 on the southeast corner of the square. The Ward Hall continued to be used for some church meetings, but became more and more a place for drama, dances, and other forms of entertainment. The Kanab Stake Center was attached to the chapel in 1959 and shortly thereafter and the Ward Hall was torn down to make way for an LDS welfare storehouse that was never built; instead, the Old Rock Church in the town of Mount Carmel seventeen miles north of Kanab was used as the area storehouse. The land remained vacant until the property was sold to the State Bank of Southern Utah in 1978. Additional information is available at the Kanab Heritage Museum.