Editing Taylorsville, Utah (section)

=== Twentieth century ===

The territorial legislature passed Utah's first Compulsory Education Law in 1890 which gradually brought most children off the farms and into the classroom. It had little effect until the early 1900s when small local school districts, seen as a roadblock to raising the standard of Utah education, were consolidated. In December 1904 the Salt Lake County Commission voted to combine 22 of the 36 local school districts into the Granite School District with boundaries that matched the LDS Granite Stake boundaries. Schools which up to that time were often numbered were given names.

In 1905, 600 people lived in Bennion, enough to split from the Taylorsville LDS Ward and create the Bennion Ward to the south. Meetings were held in the red brick schoolhouse for a time until the Bennion meetinghouse was built in 1907 at the corner of 6200 South and Redwood Road next to the school.

The need for a "modern" school and the establishment of compulsory tax-supported public schools throughout Utah gave rise to the old Plymouth Elementary School on Redwood Road and 4800 South. By 1907, there were so many children in the Bennion school that the upper grades were sent to the two-story red brick Plymouth School in Taylorsville. In 1909 an amusement hall and classrooms were added to the Taylorsville Chapel. Electricity came to the Taylorsville area during the early 1900s but had little effect on the life of most people who saw little use for it outside lighting their homes. It was considered a luxury and many families chose not to connect until the 1920s or 1930s when rural electrification made power available to everyone.

Two railroads were important to Taylorsville, the Rio Grande, and Western to Bingham Junction (Midvale), and the Bingham-Garfield Railroad was added through the area in 1910. A well was dug at 4700 South and 5400 West where a locomotive watering station was built. In 1913 the electric Salt Lake Inter-Urban, often call the "Orem Line", was built to make it possible to ride into Salt Lake or as far as Payson on the "Red Arrow" in from the Francklyn Station in Murray or at the Bennion Station. The line ran parallel to Redwood Road about 1800 West. In 1915 the first water system was built by private subscription. People who wanted clean water piped to their homes paid to have it delivered to them. Later this system was bought and expanded by the Taylorsville-Bennion Improvement District. Electricity came to the area in 1916 along Redwood Road. During World War I four young men from Taylorsville lost their lives and sixteen served in the armed forces.

By the 1920s, two canals were built to carry water to farms farther and farther west. Redwood Road was finally rebuilt using concrete making it faster and easier to travel for the mixture of automobiles, wagons, and horses that used it. How Redwood Road got its name has been the subject of much debate but, when there are no redwoods in the valley, the following explanation rings truest. A line parallel to the base meridian was surveyed on the west side of the Jordan River for use in measuring property lines. Redwood stakes that did not decay in the ground were used for the "Redwood Line". It remained the Redwood Line until 1895 when Redwood Road was built as the main thoroughfare for the west side of Salt Lake County. In 1927 the "Pole Line Road" 2700 West was constructed.