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Emergency Responders: Ute Indian Firefighters
Have you ever seen a wildfire exploding up a mountain or heard one roaring through a forest? For Northern Ute Indian Firefighters, that was just another day at work.As a kid, Gina Sixkiller remembered her father smelling like fire. "I used to think…
Navajo Code Talker Samuel Holiday
Meet Samuel Holiday, whose traditional Navajo upbringing shaped his work as a code talker and changed the course of World War II.When Samuel Holiday was forced to attend a government boarding school for Native American children, he was forbidden to…
Hollywood Puts Utah to Work
Utah’s romance with the movie industry began in the 1920s silent film era and hasn’t diminished since. Nearly a thousand motion pictures and television series have filmed in Utah, bringing millions each year to the state. Learn how Hollywood…
Howard Coleman: Stepping Stones to a Better Life
Meet Howard Coleman, who came West with the railroad and built a better life – one job at a time.Like many of us, Howard Coleman used his work as a stepping stone to a better life. As a black man and the son of a Kentucky share-cropper, his…
Erased History: Chinese Workers in Park City
Barred from lucrative work and hounded by local residents, it took years of discrimination against Chinese workers to erase their contributions to Park City.All that remains of Park City’s once-thriving Chinatown is a name on a parking garage:…
Brewing Liquid Bread
Did you know that before Prohibition, Utah was home to fifteen breweries? Some were among the biggest and best in the West. Learn about Utah’s early beer brewers and their specialized craft.Ask any beer brewer – or any beer connoisseur – and…
AnnaBelle Weakley: Businesswoman & Community Builder
Meet AnnaBelle Weakley – known as the “Queen of 25th Street” – and learn how her entrepreneurial instinct and civic spirit transformed her Ogden community.During the mid-twentieth century, there was no railroad hub in Utah busier than Ogden,…
Pablo O’Higgins: Mexican Muralist
The Mexican Mural Renaissance is one of the most famous art movements in modern history. Learn how a blond-haired, blued-eyed, 20-year-old from Salt Lake City became a Mexican Muralist. In 1924, Utah judge Edward Higgins put his twenty-year-old…
Ancient Farmers & Prehistoric Waterways
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…
Red Reed Water: Clear Creek as Native Waterway
The valley floor and cliffs of Clear Creek Canyon were sculpted over millions of years and evidence hints that humans moved along its waters as early as 8,000 years ago. You may have driven through this canyon yourself, but do you know the importance…
Rural Utah at a Crossroads
Every rural person and place has a story. Change is part of that story. While many Utahns identify with rural landscapes, work, and culture, the very idea of "rural" is changing today.
Utah is an urban place with a rural heart. The vast majority of…
Moson Kahni: The Winter Camp at Boa Ogoi
Located along the Utah-Idaho border, the Bear River is the source of life for Northwestern Shoshone people. They know it as Boa Ogoi and for hundreds of years, winters spent along its edge offered respite and rejuvenation.
The Northwestern Band of…
Reclaiming Boa Ogoi
![Darren at Boa Ogoi by Levi Simm Oct 2020[11].jpg](https://www.utahhumanities.org/stories/files/square_thumbnails/d82d6ef51a196ab41282cfdb5d6f3ce8.jpg "Darren at Boa Ogoi by Levi Simm Oct 2020[11].jpg")
The colonization of northern Utah’s Cache Valley escalated tensions that led to the horrific 1863 massacre of Shoshone people at their winter camp on Bear River. Learn how the Shoshone have returned to the river and are reclaiming it as a healing…
Law of the River: Conflicts & Legacies
In 1922, Utah joined the Colorado River Compact as arid Western states started to scramble for equal access to the waters of the Colorado River. But taming nature with this legal agreement did not come... naturally.
In 1922, seven states in the…
Water Right: Just Allocation of a Precious Resource
Who has a right to water? How you answer that question likely reflects your cultural concept of water ownership. It’s no surprise that ideas about how to fairly allocate this precious resource vary wildly – both today, and in the past.
It's…
“You Protect the Water:” Uranium Mining & Utah’s Native Peoples
The uranium mining and milling industry in Utah has had a devastating effect on water that disproportionately affected the health and safety of Native American tribes.
During the height of the atomic age after World War II, southern Utah was teeming…
Water Shapes Utah’s First Black Community: “The Hill” at Millcreek
In the late 19th century, Black settlers in the Salt Lake Valley used the waters of Millcreek Canyon to create a thriving community of their own.
Where water is, people gather. This was true for Indigenous peoples of Utah, as well as Mormon colonists…
Lagoon: From Promenades to Rollercoasters
Did you know that one of the oldest roller coasters in the world is right here in Utah? It all started with a pond and a dancehall called “Lagoon.” Learn more about one of Utah’s oldest amusement parks.In the late nineteenth century -- before…
Water is Alive: Navajo Connections to the Colorado River
In Navajo belief systems, water is alive and a vital part of a healthy landscape. When Glen Canyon Dam blocked the flow of the Colorado River, a landscape that holds deep meaning in traditional Navajo spirituality was completely transformed.
For…
Eugene Jelesnik: The Man Behind the Music
How did a Jewish, Ukranian violin player become one of Utah’s most beloved local celebrities? Learn about the life of one extraordinary man.
Eugene Jelesnik, skillfully riffing his violin wearing one of his thirty-seven sparkly dinner jackets, was…