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"One Vast Contiguity of Waste": Ute Relocation to the Uinta Basin
Learn about the forced relocation of Ute people from lush central Utah to the remote Uinta Basin. In the mid-19th Century federal Indian policy shifted from Indian Removal toward the reservation system. The result for many Native groups,…
“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…
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…
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,…
Anti-Apartheid Activists Force Divestment at the University of Utah
In the mid-nineteen eighties, global pressure was mounting against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Learn how persistent student activists at the University of Utah forced their campus to confront its connections to an oppressive regime half a…
B’nai Israel
Utah’s first Jewish congregation, B’nai Israel, remains a symbol of the state’s first Jewish pioneers.When the first permanent Jewish settlers in Utah celebrated the high holy day of Yom Kippur a little less than 150 years ago, they did so in a…
Battling the Elements at Saltair Resort
The Great Saltair Resort is often remembered for its glory days as a dance hall and amusement park. But it was constantly at war with the harsh, saline environment that gave it its claim to fame.
In 1893, the LDS Church built the Great Saltair…
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…
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…
Chipeta: She Didn't Want to Come to Utah
Ute leader Chipeta – her search for peace meant the loss of her home and her way of life. Chipeta was the wife of Uncompahgre Ute leader Ouray and acted for years as a peacemaker between her people and the United States government. She stood…
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…
Christmas in Early Utah
Christmas in early Utah was a festive event, filled with parties, gifts, and games. There’s a lot of debate these days about the place Christmas should occupy in American culture. Some, including Utahns, argue that we need to put Christ back into…
Elizabeth Wood Kane
After Elizabeth Wood Kane arrived in Utah with her husband, her letters home became the manuscript for a book about Utah culture. Her writings shed some important light on the frontier and Mormon social customs.Most students of Utah history are at…
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…
Employee Codes of Conduct
Long work hours and blurry lines between personal and professional lives is hardly a modern dilemma. But imagine if your employer controlled not just your hours and your paycheck, but where you spent your off hours and how you spent your money.…
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:…
Evans Family Singers
The death of two brothers in the Winter Quarters mining blast was made especially tragic by their recent success as a part of their family’s musical performance troupe.In 1900, two brothers, David and Richard Evans, were killed in a tremendous…
Exile at Topaz
Thousands of Japanese Americans were forced into exile in the Utah desert during World War II. Two months after the December 1941 attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 mandating the…
Father Escalante and Joaquin
A story of friendship between Spanish explorer Father Escalante and the Ute boy who was his guide through the Utah territory.In July 1776, a group of Spanish explorers set out from Santa Fe, New Mexico in search of a northern route to one of…
From Cabinetmaker to Undertaker: Niels Lindquist
A Swedish immigrant went from furniture maker to undertaker in the Logan area during the 1800s.Neils Lindquist was an accomplished cabinetmaker who converted to Mormonism and emigrated from Sweden to Salt Lake City in 1863. He built furniture in Salt…