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The Posey War
Tensions between white and Native American populations in San Juan County escalated over limited resources and mutual misunderstanding. The eventual armed conflict between the two groups has been called “The Last Indian Uprising”.In 1923,…
The Ogdenites
Followers of Marie Ogden created a unique religious community just outside of Monticello.In 1933, the followers of Marie Ogden arrived in San Juan County's Dry Valley and began to create their version of God's kingdom. Ogden had dabbled in the occult…
Keetley Farms
Keetley Farm was an agricultural settlement for Japanese Americans during World War II.Many Utahns know the story of the internment camps built to imprison Japanese Americans during World War Two. Utah was even home to one such camp at Topaz in…
The Castle Gate Mine Disaster
A mine disaster in Carbon County claimed the lives of more than 170 men in the 1920s. The tragedy had long-reaching effects on the large mining community throughout the County.In 1924, two explosions tore through the Number Two Mine at Castle Gate in…
The Ku Klux Klan
The presence of the Ku Klux Klan was not just limited to the southern United States. In fact, the KKK had grown enough to march through the streets of Salt Lake City in the early 1920s.In 1922, a small crowd of hooded and caped Ku Klux Klansmen…
Marriner Eccles
The career of the Utahn who led the Federal Reserve Board through some of the darkest days of the Great Depression.With the Federal Reserve System so much in the news these days, let’s take a look at the Utahn Franklin Delano Roosevelt nominated to…
Grace Oshita
The experiences of a young girl who lived in Utah’s Topaz Internment Camp.Shortly after the United States declared war on Japan following the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, Grace Oshita’s father was picked up by the FBI and detained as a suspected…
VJ Day in Utah
Victory over Japan Day, the day that the Japanese government announced its surrender to the US, Utahns celebrated in the streets. Celebrations were complicated by uncertainty and fear from the Topaz Relocation Camp near Delta. On August 15, 1945, the…
Mervyn Sharp Bennion
A typical rural Utah boy, Mervyn Bennion became a war hero during World War II. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service on Pearl Harbor.Born to a large Tooele County family in 1887, Mervyn Sharp Bennion, by all accounts, lived…
Boulder Ends Its Isolation
The celebration of the first all-weather road in Boulder, Utah, also celebrated the end of the small town’s isolation from the rest of the state. The remote location of the town meant that supplies and mail had to be transported on horseback or…
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…
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…
New Deal Building Efforts in Utah
As the national debate rages over the federal budget and controversial bailouts, it’s worth remembering the impact of federal spending in Utah during the Great Depression.The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Utah harder than most states. Between…
Freak Smoking Ban Overturned
A massive public protest against a state smoking ban forced the Utah Legislature to overturn the law in 1923.Debates about the sale of cigarettes and smoking in public venues are hardly new to the Beehive State. In 1923, a determined crowd of Utah…
Linwood: the Town that Drowned
Every summer, thousands of people flee to the cool waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah’s northeast corner. But few of them would know about the little town of Linwood buried beneath the water’s surface.Linwood grew near the confluence of…
Japanese Fire Balloons Reach Utah During WWII
The Japanese bombing of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II in 1941. But one of the best-kept secrets of the War was a Japanese air offensive on the US mainland using fire balloon bombs, some of which actually reached…
The Electrification of Daggett County
Daggett County, home to the hydro-electric juggernaut Flaming Gorge Dam, did not receive electricity until well into the 20th century.Though it is now home to the hydro-electric juggernaut, the Flaming Gorge Dam, Daggett County, in the northeastern…
Masashi Goto
The wreckage of a plane and the body of its young pilot was found in the Uinta Mountains in 1929.On July 8, 1929 Nymphus Simmons, a sheepherder, found wreckage of a plane and the body of a young man in Dry Canyon near Soapstone Basin in the Uinta…
German and Italian Prisoners of War in Utah
Many people know about the Japanese internment camp Topaz, but Utah also held Italian and German prisoners of war during World War II.As World War II raged throughout Europe and Japan, captured enemy soldiers were sent to the United States and Utah…
Flash Floods Devastate Willard
Utah has had some memorable floods over the last hundred years. A 1923 flash flood left the northern Utah town of Willard completely under water.Mud. Sandbags. Water down State Street. You may remember the Salt Lake City floods of 1983 and maybe even…