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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…
Gus Faust - American Doughboy
Utah sent thousands of infantrymen into World War I where they faced unimaginable conditions on the battlefield. But when the war ended, the battle continued at home, where returning soldiers faced a changing economy, uncertain job prospects, and a…
Utah’s Military Industrial Complex
Hill Air Force Base is Utah’s sixth largest employer and military spending creates over $9 billion in economic activity for the State. Learn about the historic roots of Utah’s “Military Industrial Complex.”When US President Dwight Eisenhower…
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…
The Adventure of Bobby Donohue
Any parent who has ever lost a youngster in a crowd can imagine Park City resident Bridget Donohue’s panic when she couldn’t find her thirteen-year-old son, Bobby. Believing he had gone to nearby Heber in the fall of 1898, Bridget must have…
Citizen Activists Derail MX Missile System
A grassroots movement of Utah citizens helped derail government plans to base the MX Missile System in Utah’s Great Basin.When the United States Air Force announced its plans in 1979 to build its new MX Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System in…
A Question of Loyalty: Utah & the American Civil War
Despite Utah’s lack of direct involvement in the Civil War, they played a key role in the interests of leaders in Washington over the struggle for control of the western territories.One of the saddest episodes in American history was the Civil War,…
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…
Utah's First Masonic Lodge
Utah’s first Masonic Lodge was established by American soldiers with a lot of time on their hands.You may be familiar with the imposing Egyptian-style Masonic Temple in downtown Salt Lake City, but did you know that this wasn’t the first Masonic…
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…
USS Utah Silver Service
In 1909, more than 26,000 Utah schoolchildren helped purchase the silver service used on the American battleship USS Utah.$10,000 is a lot of money today. It was even more in 1909, particularly when it was spent to buy a bunch of silver platters and…
Bushnell Military Hospital
A military hospital in Brigham City helped wounded soldiers and transformed the community during World War II.By August 1942, the United States had been involved in World War II for eight months. As British forces halted German and Italian advances…
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…
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…
Massacre at Table Point
The violent 1850 massacre of Timpanogos Utes at Rock Canyon and Table Point in present-day Utah County.In the winter of 1850, following a pitched battle on the banks of the Provo River, the remnants of Utah Valley’s Ute population scattered, hoping…
Manuelito
Manuelito was one of the last Navajo leaders to surrender to the US military in the late 1860s.Born near the Bear Ears in extreme southeastern Utah, the man known to whites as Manuelito and to the Navajo, or Dine, as Man of Dark Plants Emerging and…
The Salina POW Camp Shooting
A shooting in a Salina prisoner of war camp killed nine prisoners and wounded over 20 others. The motive for the shooting remains unclear.At 12:25 a.m. on Sunday, July 8, 1945, two months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, the report of a…
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…
Forts Cameron and Thornburgh
Two early US Army installations in Utah were built to protect white settlers from the perceived threat of Indian attacks.In 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant formally authorized the creation of a permanent US Army garrison near Beaver named Fort…
The Indian Scare That Never Was
An alliance between Mormons and Shoshone Indians put the non-Mormon residents of Corinne on edge. Concern over an alleged uprising by the alliance shook the town to its foundations.In 1875, fears of an armed uprising by Shoshone Indians swept through…