SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Every place of worship carries its own unique history.
The Japanese Church of Christ in downtown Salt Lake City has quite a bit of history, as it’s been around for 101 years.
Lorraine Murakami Crouse is a lifelong member and explained that the people of her church represent a long-lasting legacy.
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“I’ve known the Issei’sthe first generations, they were our grandparents. And then our parents, who were Nisei’s. I’m Sansei, the third generation,” Crouse said.
During its early years, the church started with just a few Japanese railroad workers who relocated to the Beehive State.
“But the church was actually founded in 1918, but even before that, the railroad workers that were here, in Salt Lake City, they did worship informally in a home,” she said.
In time, the Japanese community and the church grew with the help of business-savvy entrepreneurs.
“There was a labor agent E.D. Hashimoto, who brought in the railroad workers and eventually the miners and the agricultural workers. And so that’s why Japantown built up around this area because his office was on South Temple across from The Temple,” Crouse said.
Hashimoto became very successful, recruiting laborers from Japan to build the railroads in the Mountain West.
He set up an import store stocked with Japanese food and merchandise that was once set up on South Temple in downtown Salt Lake.
Crouse said Hashimoto’s family is considered one of the founding cornerstone families of the Japanese Church of Christ.
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AloJapan.com