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The Legendary “Big Bill” Haywood
“Big Bill” Haywood was a legendary Utah labor leader, whose ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall.In February 1869, William D. Haywood was born in Salt Lake City into a working class family. He would grow up to become “Big Bill” Haywood,…
Defying Expectations: Elizabeth Randall Cumming's Journey to Utah
Elizabeth Randall Cumming came to Salt Lake in 1858 as the wife of Utah’s first non-Mormon Territorial Governor. Her expectations of the journey were defied every step of the way. Believing the Mormons were in rebellion in the late 1850s, the…
Not the End of the Line: Salt Lake's Rio Grande Train Depot
Once a major transportation hub, Salt Lake City’s Rio Grande Train Depot has served its community well over the last century. The Rio Grande Train Depot in Salt Lake City was built in 1910. Once a major hub of transportation, the building…
Stansbury Expedition Surveys the Great Salt Lake
Captain Howard Stansbury journeys around the Great Salt Lake. In 1849, officials of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers sent Captain Howard Stansbury on a two-year expedition to the Great Basin with a long list of orders. At the top of the…
Christina McNeil Walked to Utah
How one young Scottish woman journeyed 4,536 miles to Utah as part of “the most remarkable travel experiment in the history of Western America.”
Christina McNeil was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1831 into hard economic times. She began…
Salt Lake Valley Hot Springs
An area now occupied by an oil refinery, a gravel mine, and a freeway, was once Salt Lake’s premier tourist attraction.
Everyone smells it. A whiff of sulfur, as your car rounds the corner on I-15 between Salt Lake and Davis Counties.…
Martha Sharouk’s Journey to America
The journey of Martha Sharouk – a young wife who left Lebanon and travelled to Utah to begin a new life – did not quite go as planned… In the winter of 1913, a young Lebanese woman stepped off the train at the Denver and Rio Grande station in…
My Life on Three Continents: Jewish Refugees in Utah
Utah has become home to people of many backgrounds and cultures since the first Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. What brought these people to Utah? The convoluted journey of one family is told in Fred Linden’s…
Salt Lake City’s Red Light District
Salt Lake City’s Red Light District was the target of an unusual cleanup campaign in 1908.Prostitution is known as "the world’s oldest profession," and was established in Utah by the 1850s. While laws made prostitution illegal, Salt Lake City…
Old Ironsides
Every year American sports fans gear up for the World Series. Learn how Salt Lakers used to get their baseball fix on the streets of downtown.Throughout its storied history, the game of baseball has been broadcast via the internet, on television, and…
Archaeology Underfoot: Salt Lake’s Downtown Fremont Village
The unique discovery of an ancient Fremont Village in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City tells a story of a time before Utah was settled by European pioneers.Thousands of people ride the Trax line through downtown Salt Lake City every day. As they…
Leonidas Skliris: Czar of the Greeks
Learn about the infamous labor padrone Leonidis Skliris and why he was known as “Czar of the Greeks” among Murray-Midvale smelters.At the beginning of the 20th Century, labor agents brought immigrants to Utah to work in the mines and smelters, on…
Hoop Mania Sweeps Utah
Utah women were captivated by “hoop mania” back in the 1860s. The fashionable hoop-skirt swept through Mormon society.The headline on the September 7, 1859 issue of Salt Lake’s Valley Tan newspaper read “Progress of the Hoop Mania.” The…
SLC Bicycle Revolution
Are you a bicycle commuter? Do you appreciate riding smooth roads on the way to work? Learn how cyclists fought to get Salt Lake City roads paved back in 1901.Salt Lake City is recognized nationally as a Bicycle Friendly Community, with more than 80…
Historic Copperton
Historic Copperton is a tiny town that defied the boom-bust cycle typical of mining towns.The commercial mining industry has driven Utah’s economic, political, and social development. Most towns associated with the mining industry went through…
The Case of Anne Bradley
The tumultuous love affair between former Utah senator Arthur Brown and his mistress, Anne Bradley.In the twenty-first century we consider political scandals and courtroom drama to be characteristic of modern times. But a hundred years ago, things…
The Great White Palace: African American Segregation in Utah
The old Hotel Utah has a storied history of hospitality that is shadowed by the racial prejudice common throughout Utah right into the 1960s.Located on South Temple and Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City, the venerated Hotel Utah was known in its…
Stout and Spirited: Utah's 19th Century Liquor Industry
The surprisingly stout and spirited history of the liquor industry in 19th century Utah!During the late 1800s, Utah had a thriving liquor industry. LDS Church President Brigham Young had no qualms about producing or selling alcohol. He built a…
Miracle of the Crickets
Most of us have heard the story about the 1848 Miracle of the Gulls. This week hear a new twist on that old tale – it’s the Miracle of the Crickets! In the summer of 1848, clouds of crickets swarmed into the Salt Lake Valley and threatened to…
A Grand Old Lady - Salt Lake's Ambassador Club
The captivating and controversial past of Salt Lake City’s old Ambassador Club.An imposing structure sporting spires and turrets on Salt Lake City’s 5th East is long gone, but its ghosts include those of polygamist wives and a controversial…