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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…
The Bear River Massacre
The Bear River Massacre was an event that changed the landscape of northern Utah and the fate of the Shoshone people.In the early morning cold of January 29, 1863, between 270 and 400 Shoshone men, women, and children were killed by the U.S. Army…
Jewish Pioneers of Clarion
On September 10, 1911, twelve Jewish families arrived in Gunnison, Utah, to establish a Jewish agricultural community. The group was part of the “Back to Soil” movement, which believed Jews needed to leave the city and live on farms. The…
Intermountain Indian School
The “I” is fading fast on the mountainside above Brigham City, Utah. Winter snows threaten to erase it for good and with it, the memory of one of Utah’s more significant stories: The Intermountain Indian School, a federally-run Native American…
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…
Monticello's Hispanic Pioneers
In 1899, Ramon Gonzalez, his wife Guadalupe, and his children Romana and Prudencio, left their home in Dixon, New Mexico, to settle in Monticello, Utah. A wagon carried all their household possessions, while a few head of livestock followed on the…
Christmas Gift Giving in Pioneer Cedar City
Imagine you live in 19th century rural Utah. Christmas is coming and your children look forward to a celebration with Santa and gifts. There are no stores, no mail orders. How would you meet their expectations?“It [was] a two-room log house with a…
Massacre in Nephi: Archaeology of a Mass Grave
A mass grave was found in Nephi, Utah, proving how archaeology can provide a voice for the dead.In 2006, while digging the foundation for a new house in the central Utah town of Nephi, construction workers uncovered human bones. In fact, seven Native…
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…
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…
Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Baseball in Carbon County
The all-American game of baseball helped new immigrants adjust to life in Utah during the early 1900s.During the early 1900s, the United States came into its own as an industrialized nation. Attracted by jobs and the chance to move up in society,…
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…
Helen Zeese Papanikolas
A famous historian used her girlhood memories of Carbon County to completely change the way we understand Utah’s past.She passed away in 2004, but Helen Zeese Papanikolas is still revered in Utah as an historian whose work made it impossible to…
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…
What's so Special about Utah's Danger Cave?
A seemingly non-descript cave in Utah’s west desert holds the key to understanding Utah’s ancient past.To the untrained eye, Danger Cave near Wendover, Utah, is utterly unremarkable. But ask any archaeologist about this dusty desert cave and…
Utah State Symbols
In 2011 Utah state lawmakers voted to designate the Browning M1911 pistol as the official state firearm. The gun would be the latest addition to a surprising collection of historic state symbols.You’ve probably heard of official Utah state symbols…
Celebrating Chinese New Year in Utah
Celebrations of the Chinese Lunar New Year have riveted Utahns since 1869.When Chinese immigrants first came to Utah to build the railroad in 1869, they brought one of their most important holidays, the Chinese Lunar New Year, a 15-day festival that…
The Glorious Gardo House (Part 2)
Salt Lake City’s Gardo House was home to Mormon polygamists on the lamb and the West’s most shining socialites.The Gardo House, a Victorian mansion in downtown Salt Lake, was once touted as the finest home between Chicago and San Francisco. Its…
The Glorious Gardo House (Part 1)
The unusual history of a remarkable mansion in downtown Salt Lake City.Downtown Salt Lake City was once home to a famously opulent Victorian mansion with an extraordinary history. Construction of the Gardo House began in 1873 on the southwest corner…