The old grid Centerville
The old town core of a Davis County bench town
Historic Centerville, Utah, and the old stone houses along Main Street
Centerville's history is easiest to read on foot. The two blocks around the Main and Center corner hold the town's oldest houses, built of local stone in the 1860s by one family of masons, plus an 1866 stagecoach building that somebody still lives in and a small city museum you can actually go inside. Here is what stands there, who built it, and how to tell good pioneer stonework from the sidewalk.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
If you want the history of Centerville in one walk, it is the old core: the blocks along Main Street, a couple either side of the Center Street corner, where the town was settled in 1847 and 1848 and where its pioneer houses still stand. The families built in a set order, log first, then adobe, then local stone, so the oldest homes you can still see are the stone ones from the 1860s. Most of them were laid up by a single family of masons, the Duncans, whose corner stones are the tell. One 1866 stagecoach building on Center Street survives as a private home, and a small city museum sits inside a listed stone house on Main. The rest is a walk past private property, done from the sidewalk.
The old core
A pioneer grid that grew into a line along Main Street
Centerville was settled in 1847 and 1848, and the names of the first families are still on the map: the Deuels, the Cherrys, the Porters, the Parrishes. They laid the town out the way most early Utah settlements were laid out, as a block of residential lots around a central square, and then it did something a little different. It stretched. Farmsteads filled in along Main Street to the north and south until the town read less like a tidy square and more like a long line strung down one road, which is still exactly how the old part of Centerville feels on the ground: longer and thinner than a pioneer plat usually does.
The building followed a clear sequence, and it is worth knowing before you walk, because you can almost date a house by what it is made of. Log came first, for the fort years. Adobe came next. Then local stone, once the settlement had decided it was staying, and the stone houses of the 1860s are the ones that survive in numbers today. A number of the old houses are individually listed on the National Register, one by one rather than as any single district, and the city publishes a walking tour booklet of its historic homes for anyone who wants to see them the intended way, on foot.
Two streets carry the town, and telling them apart saves confusion. Main Street, which is State Route 106, is the historic spine: the stone houses, City Hall and the museum all sit on it. Parrish Lane, at about 400 North, is the newer east to west street, and it is the everyday one, the retail and commuter road running out to the I-15 interchange with the grocery stores and the drive throughs. You walk Main Street for the history and drive Parrish Lane for the errands. The rest of what is worth doing in town sits on the things to do page.
The 1866 building
The Wells Fargo stage stop that became somebody's house
The single oldest thing in the old core is easy to miss, because people live in it. At 186 East Center Street stands a building put up in 1866 as a Wells Fargo livery and stage stop, later run as an amusement hall called Elkhorn Hall once the railroad arrived and the stage traffic dried up. It is one of the oldest commercial buildings left standing in Davis County, and it has been a private home for a very long time now.
A Daughters of Utah Pioneers marker set in 1948 stands on the street in front of it, which is the right and only way to meet the building: read the plaque from the sidewalk and keep walking. There is no tour, no open door and no published owner history beyond the year and the use. The interest is the survival itself, a working stage stop from the years the temple down in Salt Lake was still rising, still on its corner and still lived in.
One thing to keep straight, because the street invites the mix up: 1866 belongs to this building on Center Street, and to nothing else on the walk. The stone house that holds the city museum, two blocks north on Main, is a few years older, and its date gets attached to this one all the time. Hold them apart.
How to read a stone house
One family of masons, and corner stones cut for a temple
This is the part that turns a slow walk down Main Street into something you can actually do. Most of the rock houses in Centerville were built by one family, Charles Duncan and his three sons, John, Charles and Archibald. The Duncans laid up much of the early stonework across the south end of Davis County too, working from the 1850s into the 1890s. Charles also spent years cutting stone for the Salt Lake City temple while it was under construction in the 1860s, and that detail is the key to the whole street.
Here is the signature. The walls of a Duncan house are rough local rock, gathered from the dry creek beds and the bench above town and laid up in an irregular pattern. The corners are the opposite: dressed, regular, finer blocks of granite or sandstone, and a good number of those corner stones are believed to be offcuts left over from the temple work. So the way to spot one is to look at the corners. A rough, random, locally gathered wall finished off with neat, contrasting corner blocks is a Duncan building, and those corner blocks may well have started life on a temple down the valley in Salt Lake. No plaque on the street tells you this.
The material sequence does the rest of the dating for you. Log, then adobe, then stone, in that order, so a stone house is a house from after the town decided it was permanent. If you want to learn the wall types with your hands before you try to read them with your eyes, the city museum keeps a hands on exhibit about exactly this, which makes it the sensible first stop rather than the last.
The museum
A city museum inside a listed stone house
The one building in the old core you can go inside is the Heritage Museum, and it lives in a stone house called the Whitaker House at 168 North Main Street, just south of City Hall. The house is a Duncan building in its own right, put up in the early 1860s, around 1862, when Thomas Whitaker had Charles Duncan raise him a one and a half story field stone house from stone off his own land, a few years after the family settled here in 1858. The house itself is on the National Register, and the city owns it and runs the museum in it.
What is inside is the reason to time your visit for it: artifacts from the 1800s, historic videos, a Centerville women's history exhibit, and the hands on display about how these stone houses were built. There is a silk thread to the story too. The Whitakers are believed to have been among the first in Utah to raise silkworms and spin silk, and Elizabeth Whitaker is said to have made a silk scarf for Brigham Young in 1862. Believed and said are the right words to keep on both.
The catch is the hours. The museum is open only two days a week and posts no admission price, so it is worth a call to the city to confirm the current days, times and any holiday closures before you drive out. And say early 1860s for this house and leave it there. The 1866 date is the stagecoach building on Center Street, not this one.
Centerville Heritage Museum, in the Whitaker House Directions
Every house in the old core except the museum is somebody's home. Being old, or even being listed on the National Register, does not make a house open, and it places no obligation on the owner to let anyone in. Read them from the sidewalk. Do not knock, do not enter a yard and do not photograph through windows. And because the museum keeps such short hours, confirm the current days and times with the city before you plan a trip around it.
Buying in the old core
What an old house here means when you are the one buying it
People do buy and live in these houses, so it is worth being plain about what a historic listing actually does. Being listed on the National Register is an honor and a record. On its own it does not open a house to the public, it does not oblige the owner to do anything, and it does not stop an owner altering or improving a privately owned building with private money. What it can do is make certain tax provisions available, and trigger a review when federal money or a federal permit is involved. If any of that bears on a specific house you are weighing, the Utah State Historic Preservation Office is the body to ask, and a listing is a reason to ask the question rather than an answer to it.
The practical side is the building itself. A rock wall a hundred and sixty years old is a different inspection from a modern stud wall, and it is worth hiring someone who has looked at stone before. The old core sits on the east bench, where the canyon wind comes down hard off the Wasatch on a stormy night, an ordinary fact of life up against the mountains that is worth knowing before you fall for a view lot. None of it is a reason to walk away. It is a reason to go in with your eyes open.
One last thing this page will not do, on purpose. It describes the buildings, the stone, the streets and the dates, and it stops there. Who lived in these houses, and who lives in them now, is not the subject. If you are thinking seriously about an address in the old grid, the wider practical picture, prices, providers, schools and drive times, sits on the Centerville city guide, and the day to day of settling in is on the moving to Centerville page.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
Historic Centerville, answered
It is the old core of the town, the blocks around Main Street and Center Street that were settled in 1847 and 1848 and still carry their pioneer houses. The families built in a clear order, log first, then adobe, then local stone, so the oldest surviving homes are the stone ones from the 1860s. Centerville today is a town of about seventeen thousand people on the east bench of Davis County, but the two blocks either side of the Main and Center corner are the part that reads as history on foot.
Yes, at 186 East Center Street, and it is a private residence, so the honest answer is that you read it from the sidewalk. It was built in 1866 as a Wells Fargo livery and stage stop, later used as an amusement hall called Elkhorn Hall, and it is one of the oldest commercial buildings left in Davis County. A Daughters of Utah Pioneers marker put up in 1948 stands on the street in front of it. Look, do not knock.
Charles Duncan and his three sons, John, Charles and Archibald. The Duncans laid up most of the rock houses in Centerville and much of the early stonework across south Davis County, working from 1853 into the 1890s. Charles also spent years cutting stone for the Salt Lake City temple while it was under construction in the 1860s, which is why the family's own houses turn out to be so useful to know about when you walk the old grid.
By the corners. The walls are rough local rock, gathered from dry creek beds and the bench above town and laid in an irregular pattern. The corners are different: dressed, finer, regular blocks of granite or sandstone, and some of those corner stones are believed to be offcuts left over from the Salt Lake temple work. So a rough local wall finished with neat, contrasting corner blocks is the Duncan signature, and no plaque on the street will tell you that.
It is the city's museum, and it lives inside a listed stone house called the Whitaker House at 168 North Main Street, just south of City Hall. Inside are artifacts from the 1800s, historic videos, a Centerville women's history exhibit and a hands on display about how these stone houses were built, which is the part worth doing before you walk the blocks outside. It is open two days a week, so check the current hours with the city before you drive out.
The early 1860s, around 1862, when Thomas Whitaker had Charles Duncan build him a one and a half story field stone house from stone off his own land, a few years after the family settled in Centerville in 1858. Say early 1860s and leave it there. Do not confuse it with 1866, which is the year of the Wells Fargo stagecoach building two blocks away on Center Street, an easy mix up on this street.
Only from the sidewalk. The old houses are private homes, and being old, or even being on the National Register, does not oblige an owner to let anyone in. The one place you can actually go inside is the Heritage Museum, which is a city facility inside a listed house and is open two days a week. The city also publishes a walking tour booklet of its historic homes, so the intended way to see them is a walk past private property, not a knock on the door.
There is no formal National Register historic district in Centerville. What there is instead is a scatter of individual old houses that are listed on the Register one by one, plus a federal Preserve America designation the town has carried since 2005. If you see a reference to a historic Deuel Creek district, treat it with care, because the Register lists individual buildings, not a whole district. For a specific property, the state historic preservation office is the body to ask.
Main Street is the old spine, running north to south as State Route 106, and it is where the pioneer stone houses, City Hall and the museum sit. Parrish Lane is the newer east to west street, at about 400 North, and it is the town's everyday retail and commuter road out to the I-15 interchange, with the grocery stores and the drive throughs. If you want the history you walk Main Street; if you want the errands you drive Parrish Lane.
One mason, a lived-in 1866 building, and a street you can read once somebody shows you how
If a house in the old core is what you are weighing, the questions get specific: what a rock wall a hundred and sixty years old means for an inspection, what a historic listing does and does not restrict, and what a fair price looks like on a street like this one. I am based down in Southern Utah, so up here I work as a connector. Tell me what you are looking at and I will put you with a Davis County partner agent who knows Centerville, and stay on hand for the financing side of it.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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