Browse Items (31 total)

In 1776, the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed, a group of Spanish explorers entered present-day Utah Valley. Led by two Franciscan friars named Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, the expedition was launched to…

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,…

Persistent tales about a lost Spanish colony piqued the interest of Jose Rafael Serracino. Like many explorers before him, he was inspired to put together a search party and leave Santa Fe to explore the West. In 1811, more than three decades after…

The founding and eventual demise of the Shoshoni settlement known as Washakie.In 1880, a handful of Shoshoni families and a few Mormon missionaries settled on a plot of land near the Utah-Idaho border and called the settlement Washakie in honor of an…

A federal project diverted water promised to the Ute Tribe into southern Utah County. This water grab harmed Ute claims to land in the Uintah Basin. In 1905 the federal government authorized the Strawberry Valley Project. Designed to divert water…

Known for its history as a settlement for displaced Japanese-Americans during World War II, this ranching, mining, and farm town in Wasatch County was buried by the Jordanelle Reservoir. If you’ve ever been to the Jordanelle Reservoir, you may not…

The historic settlements underneath Willard Bay were submerged twice - first by years of dirt, dust, and debris and then again by a flooded reservoir.Buried under the Willard Bay reservoir on the northeast end of Great Salt Lake is not one but two…

As you're preparing for the festive season, consider a few vignettes from the 1800s telling how our Utah forebears feasted, reveled, and somehow made their way through the winter holidays.The first known Utah Christmas was a multicultural affair…

Stocking Utah’s waterways with sport fish is a practice that goes back more than a century – so long ago that many people may think these introduced species are native. Find out how this impacts Utah’s true native fishes. Setting up beside a…

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…

When Mormon pioneers tried to settle along the banks of the Virgin River, raging waters kept them from getting too comfortable. Learn about the ghost town of Grafton and its losing battle with the River. Utah has little regular rainfall, so…