Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency

There's a street beneath the Gallivan Center that doesn't exist anymore. 👻

Its name was Victoria Alley.

In the early 1900s, a narrow opening off State Street led into the interior of Block 57. Hidden behind the businesses lining downtown's streets were small residences, brothels and a row of tiny adobe rooms.

And in 1902, a man died there.

Daniel Ryan, a miner who had reportedly arrived in Salt Lake City just days earlier, entered Victoria Alley and encountered Mary Jane Smith, a young Black woman who lived and worked there.

According to historical accounts, Smith was desperate for rent money and attempted to rob Ryan by slipping morphine into his beer, intending to knock him unconscious.

The dose killed him.

Smith pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Her attorneys asked for leniency, but the judge sentenced her to 20 years at hard labor, saying he wanted to make an example of her.

Even at the time, there were questions about the severity of her punishment. Smith was a young Black woman living in poverty at a time when race, gender, and class could weigh heavily on who received justice and who didn't.

She served about half her sentence before being pardoned in 1913, when she was gravely ill. She died a month later and was buried in an unmarked grave at the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Eventually, Victoria Alley disappeared, too.

Decades later, the RDA began assembling property on Block 57 and transformed the area into the Gallivan Center. Today, the CRA owns the plaza, where thousands gather for concerts, festivals, ice skating and events each year.

But places marked by tragedy and injustice have a way of holding onto their stories.

So the next time you're walking across the Gallivan Center after dark, remember:

Victoria Alley may have disappeared.

That doesn't necessarily mean everything left with it. 👻