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Cal Crump has spent a half-century caring for Copperton's crown jewel.
Although he's grown old beneath its thick-trunked pines, the 80-year-old Crump continues to preserve, and polish, a community park that has become the centerpiece of Copperton's social scene and a destination for solitude seekers countywide.
This week, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon will honor the longtime caretaker, who has clipped the park's city-block-sized lawn, cleared its wind-toppled branches and replaced sprinkler heads-turned-geysers since 1959, when he was a young teacher at Bingham High looking for a summer job.
"He has been a faithful employee for many years," Corroon said. "He is an institution in Copperton and deserves all the recognition he receives."
Indeed, Crump has become as much a fixture of the park as its arched entryways and winding walkways -- often spending six to eight hours a day tending to a patch of green that Utah Copper (now Kennecott) carved in 1926 as the central attraction for its emerging mining town at the base of Bingham Canyon for company executives and foremen.
But now it has become Crump's second backyard. The caretaker doesn't dare retire, muses his wife, Gwen Crump, out of fear his replacement might not maintain it so meticulously.
"It's getting harder every year," she says. Question is, "Is it going to be harder for him to give it up and have someone else take care of it? He really has pride in it.
"I just like to keep things looking nice," Crump says.
The caretaker signed on to the county payroll in 1959 as a summertime gig while working at Bingham High. He hadn't meant to make it a lifetime affair. In fact, each spring he would tell his wife, "Ahh, one more year."
But those years turned to decades -- and Crump became the face of Copperton's central park.
That truth was reflected in the words of Community Council Chairman Gary Curtis' son. Now an adult, he had said the following as a grade-schooler:
"Cal is the richest man in Copperton," he told his mother.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because he owns the park."
It certainly seemed that way. Even after Crump announced his retirement from the Jordan School District in the early 1990s -- having served 39 years as teacher, coach, counselor and vocational coordinator at Bingham -- he continued his morning rounds. He now ranks as the longest-serving parks and recreation employee, earning a seasonal wage of less than $10 an hour.
"Bless his heart," parks and rec spokesman Martin Jensen says, "we need people like him."
And Crump still has no plans to quit. The job, he says, "probably keeps me alive longer."
That longtime legacy will earn the county's recognition Wednesday. When asked what Corroon's tribute will mean after a half-century overseeing the township's park, the caretaker chuckles.
One thing it shows, Crump says, "it hasn't been a political job."
You see, Crump is a Republican. Corroon is a Democrat. Then, with an added note of seriousness, Crump remarks: "It is really something I'm looking forward to. It is quite an honor to be recognized."
But until then, he has a park to tend.
