Summit County installs first Quilted Together sculpture in Coalville

Summit County has planted its first Quilted Together sculpture in Coalville, using a public art installation to tie the historic Union Pacific Rail Trail more closely to the town’s identity and the broader trail corridor east of Park City. The piece, titled Patchwork Migration, stands where Center Street meets the Rail Trail near 50 West, close to Weber River Feed & Supply, and a public ribbon-cutting is scheduled for Friday, June 19, from 11 to 11:30 a.m.

The sculpture was created by Trevor Dahl and Garth Franklin and was commissioned through a bid process that began in October 2025. Summit County put $13,000 in RAP Tax funding behind the project. The artwork shows a flock of migratory birds rising from a blue-and-white quilted pattern and framed by reclaimed railroad tracks, a design the county says reflects Coalville’s quilting legacy, its railroad history and the many migrations, animal and human, that have shaped the region.

Megan Altman, chair of the Summit County Public Art Advisory Board, said the installation is meant to serve as a lasting reminder of the area’s legacy and a promise for its future. County materials describe the Rail Trail as the thread that weaves communities together, with the quilt-inspired approach intended to celebrate each place along the corridor while visually uniting them into a single identity. The county says the project is the first installment in a broader arts and culture effort meant to connect towns and cities along the trail.

That effort builds on a longer planning framework. Summit County adopted its Rail Trail Corridor Plan unanimously in May 2023, later expanded in a spring 2025 arts and culture implementation strategy. The corridor is described as a 24-mile arts, culture, recreation and tourism route that has operated as a non-motorized trail since 1992, stretching from the Wasatch Mountains near Park City through Silver Creek Canyon, Wanship and Coalville along the Weber River to Echo Reservoir. County history materials also note that Union Pacific was the first railroad to enter Utah territory, with construction down Echo Canyon beginning in 1868 as part of the transcontinental railroad.

The Coalville sculpture also underscores how Summit County is using public art beyond Park City. The county’s public art program dates to April 2008, when commissioners created it by ordinance 696 and seeded it with 1% of capital facility funds. The Rail Trail Corridor Plan later won the 2024 Vernon Deines Award from the American Planning Association, recognition that adds weight to the county’s push to use trail investment, local history and public art to shape community character on the east side of the county.