Historic West Point Cannery building gets second life in Eden
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- The West Point Cannery building has been relocated and rebuilt in Eden using its original materials.
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- A historical photo of the West Point Cannery, which once stood near 300 N. 3100 West in West Point. The building has been restored and relocated in Eden as the new Sunnyfield Cannery.
EDEN — New life has been breathed into a part of West Point’s history, 25 miles to the north through Ogden Canyon in nearby Eden.
The old West Point Cannery building, which stood for the better part of a century near 300 N. 3100 West in the Davis County city, has been relocated and rebuilt, brick by brick, by the owner of Eden’s Blacksmith Village and Sunnyfield Farm.
The building, first erected in 1925 by local farmers along the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad’s Farnsworth Spur and used to can locally grown tomatoes, was on the verge of demolition in 2015 when the Eden-based group was prompted to act.
Sunnyfield’s owner had helped save other local historical buildings previously — Ogden’s Proudfit Building and Thorstensen Building among them — and was taken aback by the structure’s beauty, even as it had been out of use and neglected for decades, a company spokesperson told the Standard-Examiner.
So, approximately $200,000, or 10 times the amount that was quoted for the demolition, was paid to dismantle and move every brick, post and other elements from the West Point site to their new home in Eden.
It was a process that took nearly a year to complete, after which the materials remained in storage for several more years.
Now, the approximately 80,000 original bricks and 80,000 pounds of reclaimed wood have been reassembled near the farm and the Blacksmith Village as the new Sunnyfield Cannery.
In order to adhere to modern building codes, the original interior and exterior brick was built around new cinderblock walls. The new, hybrid walls are now 19 inches thick. Meanwhile, several of the structure’s old, load-bearing, wooden beams were replaced with stronger steel I-beams to create a free-span design.
It’s a far cray from the cannery’s original design — a simple brick construction with walls that were just four bricks deep and a wooden post/beam/truss/floor/ceiling system.
Reconstruction began in 2022 and is now in its homestretch — work is expected to be completed sometime in the next 30 days. The revived cannery structure spans 7,500 square feet.
Sunnyfield is currently looking for tenants for the cannery building, which will offer one to eight units for lease. Although it resides next to a farm once more, the company is open to leasing space for a diverse array of operations.
Interested parties can contact Shawn Clegg, at 801-232-4153 or visit sunnyfieldcannery.com for more information.