SALT LAKE CITY — Once upon a time, Harry Houdini, the famed magician and escape artist, hung upside down from a downtown building in Salt Lake City.
Houdini started his career in entertainment at an early age as a magician and trapeze performer in circus shows and dime museums. After moving to New York in 1882, he performed in Vaudeville shows.
But Houdini began to earn international success and fame in the late 1890s from performing audacious feats of extrication from strait jackets, shackles or locked containers like coffins.
“Houdini was doing a nationwide tour in 1915 and he had a salt lake stop during Christmas week,” said Salt Lake City historian Rachel Quist. “He'd just come from Los Angeles, where he'd perform similar tricks, and was going to perform at the Orpheum Theater, which is the capital theater, and also at the Walker Tower.”
Quist learned about Houdini’s visit to Salt Lake while researching casket manufacturing in Salt Lake City for her series of spooky histories on her website.
“I found a reference to Houdini getting himself out of a casket made by Salt Lake casket company,” Quist explained. “Not true, but he did get out of a box.”
Before his act at the Walker Tower at 175 South Main Street, Houdini was a headliner act at the Orpheum Theater. According to Quist, Houdini escaped from a locked box assembled on stage by the carpenter union in Salt Lake.
Houdini often used local groups to market and facilitate his appearances. He would involve the police and fire departments or local newspapers. He would also receive challenges from these groups to do his daring tricks.
On Christmas week in 1915, he Dangled himself from the Walker Tower. Then freed himself from a straight jacket while hanging upside down from his ankles.
“The whole intersection at Main Street at Second South was full of people,” Quist shared from her research. “The Walker building was only two years old, and it was the beginning of a new Salt Lake for people. We have skyscrapers, we have famous people coming into town. It was an exciting time.”
