The museum Syracuse
Five buildings on one block, run by a city and a service club, with a collection that is partly the town itself
The Regional Museum, and the seven markers standing around town
It opened on 10 May 2002 after years of work by the Syracuse Historical Committee, and the city runs it in partnership with the Syracuse Lions Club. The complex is a main building, a barn, the Waite Barbershop and a one room log cabin that was built in Farmington and moved here, with a fifth room whose ribbon was cut in June 2026. Hours are published to the quarter hour and admission is free. And the best of it is outdoors: seven historical markers around the city, each with a narrative the museum wrote and nobody else has.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Syracuse Regional Museum is the city's local history museum, a small complex on the south side of Antelope Drive at 1891 West 1700 South, directly across from Founders Park. It opened on 10 May 2002, and the City of Syracuse runs it in partnership with the Syracuse Lions Club. What it holds is the record of this stretch of the Great Salt Lake shore: an 1887 bathing resort, a canning town, a farming bench, and the families who worked the ground. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, and the one thing worth knowing before you drive over is that the hours are posted to the quarter hour and admission is free, though a quick call settles which buildings are staffed that day. The best of the collection is outdoors and free, seven historical markers the museum has placed around the city, each about a building or a person that no longer stands.
The museum
Five buildings on one block, and a log cabin older than the town
Start with the plain version. The Syracuse Regional Museum is a small complex rather than a single building. The four original structures are the Main Building, the Barn, the Waite Barbershop and the historic Wilcox Cabin, and a fifth room was added in 2026, its ribbon cut on a Saturday morning in June during the city's June week. It opened on 10 May 2002, after several years of work by the Syracuse Historical Committee, and the City of Syracuse runs it together with the Syracuse Lions Club. Its purpose is a single sentence: to tell the story of the early social, economic and cultural development of Syracuse and the surrounding area.
The best documented object in the collection is the Wilcox Cabin, and its story is the shape of the whole place. It is a one room log house, built by a pioneer of Farmington and later moved to Syracuse, which was a routine thing to do with a log building in nineteenth century Utah and a startling thing to read on a plaque. William H. Wilcox was deeded the house by his father along with a 160 acre farm bought from Christopher Layton on 20 May 1885 for $1,800. William and Emily Wilcox moved in on 4 March 1905 and lived in the one room until 1911, and three other families had lived in it before them. It was restored in 1972 by Milton Wilcox, a descendant, who then gave it to the museum grounds, thirty years before there was a museum for it to stand in.
That is the institution in miniature: a house moved twice, lived in by four families, saved by a descendant three decades early, now one of five buildings on a single block. What the museum has not filled in are dates and origins for the barbershop and the barn, which stay a real gap in the record. So the honest instruction for a visit is to call ahead, because which of the five buildings are open varies from day to day.
A log house from Farmington, moved twice, lived in by four families, and restored in 1972 by a descendant thirty years before there was a museum.
The details
Before you go
- Call 801-614-9674 before driving out for a specific building. The complex has five structures and which of them are open varies by day.
- Groups of ten or more, and any visit outside the posted hours, are handled by appointment, and the museum asks for a call rather than an email for both.
- Admission is free. Which of the five buildings are open varies by day, so call before you go.
- The seven markers are spread across the city rather than clustered, and the city's story map is the practical way to find them.
The seven markers
A museum that put its collection outdoors, on the ground where the buildings used to be
The part that makes this worth a trip rather than a line is outdoors. The museum has placed seven historical markers around the city, each with its own narrative and an interactive story map to find them by, and every one of the seven is about something that no longer stands. It is a collection put out at the spots where the buildings used to be, and the narratives are unusually good: dated, specific, and about ordinary commercial and civic life rather than founders.
First Furrow. David Cook cut the first furrow on this ground under the Homestead Act of 1862, plowing in the spring of 1876 and sowing grain that fall. He was fourteen and lived alone until his family joined him in 1879 or 1880.
First School House. Built in 1885, with Thomas H. Phillips of Kaysville teaching all eight grades in one room and a stable at the back for the horses children rode in on. A Sunday school met that December and the first formal class in January 1886.
Walker Brothers Store. The general store the Walker brothers bought in 1891. Its telephone line, installed in 1901, cost $300 and reached Hooper, and James T. Walker's two young daughters took the messages and carried them to the people they were for.
Buddhist Temple. A wooden temple built in 1925 for Japanese farming families who had arrived from 1915, many of them working on the Barnes estate. Claude T. Barnes donated the land; the building was used for gatherings, film nights, judo and language classes as well as for services; the congregation merged with Ogden's in 1980 and the building came down in 1990.
Jim's Sports Center. A diner and gathering spot, also known at one point as the Syracuse Cafe, run by Jim Rentmeister for thirty two years. From the 1960s to the 1980s the town met here for breakfast on the opening morning of pheasant season, came back for lunch, restocked shells and went out again.
Syracuse Lions Club. The service club that is still the museum's partner, chartered in 1951. Before the elementary school took the ground, the club had put tennis courts, baseball diamonds, restrooms and a bowery on it, and it later turned the old city dump into a rodeo ground.
Lady Lions Club. The women's service club alongside it, established in 1963, known for quilting, visits to retirement homes, and sponsoring the pageant that opens the city's June week.
The city keeps a story map of where the seven stand rather than a list of street addresses, so the map is the practical way to walk them, and between them they make a free afternoon out of the record of the town.
On the civic block
Open five days a week, on the same block as the park, the hall and the offices
The museum is run by the city together with the Syracuse Lions Club, and that is a real partnership rather than a courtesy line. The club was chartered in 1951 with James Rentmeister as its first president and set about building recreation for a city that had been incorporated for a year. It also published the town's history, handling a book that covers 1877 to 1965 with Cora Bodily Bybee, which is the source underneath a great deal of what circulates about Syracuse. The clubhouse went up in 1970 and 1971, with one member lending $10,000 at no interest to get it built, and the club has since worked with the city to turn the old dump into a rodeo ground and to set flag sockets at the cemetery.
The museum's practical value to somebody living here is that it sits on the block everything else sits on, and that it is open on ordinary days rather than only on festival Saturdays. Four civic addresses stand within about three hundred yards of one another: the museum, Founders Park across the street, the Community Center, and City Hall. A city of about thirty two thousand with a walkable civic center is not a given in north Davis, and this one has it by an accident of where the bench put the town in the 1890s.
The museum has its biggest day of the year on the final Saturday of the city's June week, with blacksmith demonstrations running on the hour, pioneer games, museum tours from noon to five, and a model train display in the park across the road, all of which lives on the Founders Park Week page. The other three hundred and sixty four days it is a quiet complex on Antelope Drive, and it is the right first phone call for anything about the ground: a specific farm, a specific canal, or the 1887 resort and railway that has its own page here.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The museum, answered
Tuesday through Friday from 10:00am to 5:00pm and Saturdays from 10:00am to 2:00pm, with other times available by appointment. Groups of ten or more are asked to call ahead. The museum is at 1891 West 1700 South, Syracuse, and the phone is 801-614-9674.
Admission is free. The city says the museum is free to visit. The honest instruction is to call 801-614-9674 before driving over, especially if you want a specific building open, because the complex now has five structures and which of them are staffed varies by day.
On 10 May 2002, after several years of work by the Syracuse Historical Committee. The City of Syracuse runs it in partnership with the Syracuse Lions Club, and its stated purpose is to tell the story of the early social, economic and cultural development of Syracuse and the surrounding area. A fifth building was added in 2026, its ribbon cut on Saturday 20 June during the city's June week.
The four original buildings are the Main Building, the Barn, the Waite Barbershop and the historic Wilcox Cabin, and a fifth room was added in June 2026. The cabin is the best documented: a one room log house built by a pioneer of Farmington and later moved to Syracuse, deeded to William H. Wilcox by his father along with a 160 acre farm bought from Christopher Layton on 20 May 1885 for $1,800, lived in by the Wilcox family from 4 March 1905 until 1911 and by three other families before them, and restored in 1972 by Milton Wilcox, who then donated it to the museum grounds.
Seven panels the museum has placed at spots around the city, each with its own narrative and an interactive story map for finding them. They commemorate the first furrow, the first schoolhouse, the Walker Brothers Store, a Buddhist temple, Jim's Sports Center, the Syracuse Lions Club and the Lady Lions Club. Every one of the seven is about something that no longer stands, which makes the marker program the museum's most interesting holding: a collection that is partly the town itself, at the spots where the buildings used to be.
The first person to work this ground under the Homestead Act of 1862. He plowed in the spring of 1876 and sowed grain that fall, and Joseph Bodily homesteaded eighty acres and built the first log cabin in 1877. The museum's First Furrow marker adds the detail nobody else carries: Cook was fourteen years old at the time and lived alone until his family joined him in 1879 or 1880.
Yes, from 1925 to 1980, and the museum marks the site. Japanese families came to Syracuse between 1915 and 1919, many of them working on the Barnes estate; Claude T. Barnes donated land for a building; the building was about twenty feet by forty, made of wood, with Mr Akasaka and Mr Yamada as the main carpenters; and the dedication was held on 26 April 1925. It was used for social gatherings, film nights, judo and teaching the language as well as for services. The congregation merged with Ogden's in March 1980 and the building was taken down in 1990.
More of this city than the club's name suggests. It was chartered in 1951 with James Rentmeister as first president and began providing recreational facilities right away; before the elementary school was built on the ground, the club had put tennis courts, baseball diamonds, restrooms and a bowery on it; it published and sold a history of Syracuse covering 1877 to 1965, working with Cora Bodily Bybee; its clubhouse was built in 1970 and 1971 with one member lending $10,000 at no interest; and it has since worked with the city to turn the old city dump into a rodeo ground and to install flag sockets at the cemetery.
It is a small city museum and it behaves like one, so the answer depends on what you want. For an hour with the local record of an 1887 lakeside resort, a canning town and a farming bench, it is the only place that holds it, and its curator is named rather than hidden behind a general line. For a full afternoon, pair it with the seven markers, which are free and spread across the city. What is not posted, and would help, is admission, the newest room's contents, and the dates and origins of the barbershop and the barn.
Five buildings on one block and seven markers spread across a city
A museum that opened in 2002 with a committee behind it and a service club beside it is a fair description of how Syracuse does most things, quietly and with volunteers. For somebody moving here, that means the record of the ground is reachable: a named curator, posted hours, five buildings and seven panels around town. If you are weighing a move to this end of Davis County, tell me what you are after and I will connect you with a partner agent who works these streets, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
Keep going
Continue your Syracuse research
Eight more doors into Syracuse, chosen for what this page covers.
Questions about Syracuse?
Call Scott, send a message, or find out what your Syracuse home is worth. No pressure, no obligation.
Referral Disclosure: For moves outside Southern Utah, I can connect you with trusted local agents. If you choose to work with one, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee from their commission. This costs you nothing extra, and you are never obligated to use my referral.