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"Old Scraggen" to the Rescue
Making use of the Sevier River for agriculture required some ingenuity after early Mormon settlers discovered that irrigation was more complicated than simply digging a ditch. Learn how an unconventional surveying tool nicknamed “Old Scraggen”…
"Tieing" Utah Together
Utah’s mountain ranges were raided and its rivers put to work in order to build the national railroad system. When the transcontinental railroad came to Utah in 1868 and 1869 – and as branch lines later spread through the territory – railroad…
“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…
E.A. Miller & Sons: Big Company in a Small Town
Learn about E.A. Miller & Sons, a small family business started during the Great Depression, and how it grew to be part of the world’s largest beef producer.In 1935, in the small town of Hyrum, in Utah’s rural Cache Valley, Ernest and…
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.…
Equitable Water Distribution: the 1962 Bear River Project
Utah has an insatiable demand for water, and the Bear River is one of northern Utah’s most abundant sources. Despite this, efforts to fully develop it have long been stymied by a combination of geography and politics.
All of Bear River’s natural…
Faking the Greatest Snow on Earth: Brian Head Resort's Snowmaking
Utah boasts the greatest snow on earth, but the pristine powder isn’t always nature-made. The fake snow saves tourist seasons, but at what cost?
Skiing is big business in Utah! The state’s geography allows for a light, fluffy powder that tends…
Feeding the Steam Beasts: Piping Water to the Transcontinental Railroad
Steam locomotive engines need water – a lot of it. But here in Utah – the second driest state in the Lower 48 – finding water to feed these steam beasts was a real problem for the railroad companies. Learn more about how they solved this…
Gaslighting about Gas Emissions and Acid Rain
Acid rain used to be a big problem in Salt Lake Valley. As local farmers sought to curb its impact, they found themselves getting “gaslit” about gas emissions from nearby smelters, both in court and in their own fields.
Water normally means life…
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…
Industrialism Drives Utah Women to the Workplace
American industrialism at the turn of the 20th century brought Utah women out of their homes and into the workplace. There they faced inequality and wage disparity.The turn of the twentieth century saw dramatic changes that created new opportunities…
Keeping Cool: Ice Harvesting in Utah
Ever wonder how people kept food cold before electricity? Learn how ice was harvested, stored, and used throughout Utah before freezers were common household appliances.
During the nineteenth-century, frozen water was a rare and valuable commodity.…
Not Bees But Beavers
Irrigation was essential to early Mormons’ ability to survive in Utah. Learn how they labored physically, intellectually, and communally to make the desert bloom.Looking back at the Mormons of the late nineteenth century, one historian joked that,…
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…
Pleasure Cruising: The Galloway-Stone Expedition
The outdoor recreation industry in Utah is worth billions of dollars. But getting out into nature for simple pleasure – and paying someone to guide you – is a relatively modern concept. Learn about a river trip taken in 1909 that forecast the…
Powering Utah: Lucien Nunn’s Hydroelectric Empire
The search for more affordable, alternative energy sources is nothing new. Learn how a businessman in the late 1800s electrified rural Utah using a state-of-the-art hydroelectric system.
We take it for granted now, but electricity was a hot commodity…
Provo Woolen Mills: Industry Comes to Utah
Learn about the Provo Woolen Mills, the first large factory built in Utah.Prior to the coming of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Utah's economy revolved mainly around agriculture, barter, and small-scale manufacturing. With the railroad,…
Raising Hopes and Oysters in Great Salt Lake
Have you ever looked out over Great Salt Lake and thought, “I’d really like to grow oysters there?” You probably haven’t. Learn how Utahns have tried — and failed — to cultivate this unlikely product. The Mountain West is not known for…
Resurrecting Salt Lake City’s Buried Water
You have probably walked over a buried creek many times and not realized it. Underneath the streets of Salt Lake Valley are seven creeks flowing from the Wasatch Mountains. What are the costs of hiding this water?
In 1852, land surveyor and explorer…
River vs. Colonization: The Mormon Cotton Mission
Southern Utah’s unreliable Virgin River prevented settlers from achieving their dream of taming the land to grow cotton.
Believing they could “make the desert blossom as the rose,” Mormon settlers expanded into southwestern Utah in the 1850s…