Do you know where your food comes from? Utahns once depended on local butchers for fresh meat. But, in the early 1900s business boomed for the Ogden Union Stockyards, signaling a shift in how and where Utahns purchased their food.
Today, most…
Potato growing clubs became all the rage in the early 20th century as interest in a formal agricultural education grew.
Agricultural work is critical to rural Utah’s history. But, it wasn’t until Utah State Agricultural College -- known as USAC…
When the United States was was created in the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson had a vision of a nation built by individual family farmers. Here in Utah – we love farmers. But did we really live up to Jefferson’s ideal?
For many in the United States'…
The rural Utah town of Orderville was once a communal utopia – until a single pair of pants scandalized the whole settlement.
Inspired by the utopian visions of LDS prophet Joseph Smith, Utah settlements in the 1850s reorganized into an economic…
Before food blogs and Pinterest, Utah women shared their best recipes in community cookbooks. More than just recipes, these books kept rural foodways and food culture alive.
Today, home cooks can simply search the internet to find thousands of…
The creation of Carbon County in 1894 resulted from a rift between Mormon agriculturalists and non-Mormon miners, and illustrates the struggle over identity in rural Utah.
The discovery of industrial-grade coal in 1882 at Castle Gate in Price Canyon…
Today, Utah Valley is known for its rapid development and urban growth. But the valley just east of Utah Lake used to be farmland and orchards. Find out how wartime transformation brought prosperity to this region -- but also irrevocable…
American mink are cousins to otters and ferrets, and their fur is exceptionally soft and dense. While times have changed, mink furs raised on rural Utah farms were once the height of luxury fashion.
Utah’s mink industry began in earnest in 1924,…
A federal agent in Colorado tried to force a band of Utes to take up farming. This would come to impact not just Utes in Utah, but national Indian policy.The experience of the Ute people was a crucial factor in the development of national policies…
This Thanksgiving, you might enjoy a meal that includes a roasted turkey. What are the chances it was born and raised here in Utah?Few people might associate Utah with one of America’s favorite holiday meals: turkeys. But, the turkey industry in…
Conflict between Brigham Young and US Army Colonel Patrick Connor personified the tension between mining versus agriculture as suitable ways of life in the Utah Territory. But the reality was not quite as stark as either man made it out to be.Mormon…
Hailing from the mountainous border region between Spain and France, Basques are a tightly-knit and proud ethnic group. Find out how Basque immigrants to the Intermountain West maintained their identity, community, and traditions so far from home.
In…
Travelers from all over the world come to hike Utah's famous Delicate Arch. But they often overlook the rich history of the humble log cabin sitting at its trailhead.
Delicate Arch is a famous part of Utah’s landscape, featured on gift shop coffee…
Acid rain used to be a big problem in Salt Lake Valley. As local farmers sought to curb its impact, they found themselves getting “gaslit” about gas emissions from nearby smelters, both in court and in their own fields.
Water normally means life…
Southern Utah’s unreliable Virgin River prevented settlers from achieving their dream of taming the land to grow cotton.
Believing they could “make the desert blossom as the rose,” Mormon settlers expanded into southwestern Utah in the 1850s…
Frequent droughts and a growing population continue to raise the stakes for water access in Utah. Learn about a drawn-out conflict over water in Salt Lake City that shows how tensions between agricultural and municipal water users are hardly new.
In…
If someone admits they’ve broken the law, the government is not supposed to take up their cause. Yet that is exactly what happened when a group of farmers in Heber Valley stole water from the Ute Reservation for decades.
Water in Utah is a precious…
You know those world-famous Green River melons? Well, they need lots of water to build that juicy goodness. Learn how one farm along the Green River solved the problem of getting water to its fields.
The town of Green River, Utah, is known for its…
People living in Utah have been managing water to support agriculture for over a thousand years. Using tools and techniques perfected by their ancestors, these ancient farmers manipulated water and adapted to their dry environment in order to…
The evil queen gave Snow White a poisonous apple that sent her into a magical deep sleep, but in Tooele County, a mining company used run-off water polluted with heavy metals to grow their toxic orchards.
In 1933, a Tooele mining company called the…