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"This is the Right Place": Mormon Migration to Utah
The belief that there was no future for the LDS Church in the East motivated the Mormon exodus West, to the far side of the Rocky Mountains. But how did the Mormons know where they were going?
The Mormon migration that began in 1847 has…
A Grand Old Lady - Salt Lake's Ambassador Club
The captivating and controversial past of Salt Lake City’s old Ambassador Club.An imposing structure sporting spires and turrets on Salt Lake City’s 5th East is long gone, but its ghosts include those of polygamist wives and a controversial…
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…
Blossom as the Rose: The Mormon Cultural Landscape
When members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first arrived in Utah in 1847, they set about changing Utah’s arid environment with irrigation techniques and canals that affect our landscape today.
Cultural landscapes are a…
Christina McNeil Walked to Utah
How one young Scottish woman journeyed 4,536 miles to Utah as part of “the most remarkable travel experiment in the history of Western America.”
Christina McNeil was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1831 into hard economic times. She began…
Cyrus Dallin and the Angel Moroni
The Angel Moroni is an iconic symbol that sits atop the LDS temple in downtown Salt Lake City. But did you know it was sculpted by a Protestant artist? In 1891, the plaster model for the statue of the Angel Moroni that sits atop the tallest spire of…
Ephraim Relief Society Granary
In the late nineteenth century, the local Granary building in Ephraim gave women an unusual public presence on Main Street, and became a proud symbol of early female autonomy, economic success, and charitable endeavors.
You may be familiar with the…
General Booth Comes to Utah
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was received warmly by a large crowd in Salt Lake City on his visit to Utah.In 1894, William Booth arrived in Salt Lake City by train. Booth, an Englishman who was born into a poverty-stricken family…
Indefatigable Artist Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Utah artist, Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert, is considered to be among the top women American artists- a teacher, dancer, rancher, and tenacious painter, she was heavily inspired by the religious and pioneer stories told by her parents.Artist Minerva…
Iosepa: An Unlikely Hawaiian Home
The voyage of Hawaiian Islanders to the windswept desert of Skull Valley could only have happened in Utah. Once established in Utah in 1847, the Mormon Church drew thousands of new converts who came to build a new home in “Zion.” By the…
Jewish Pioneers of Clarion
On September 10, 1911, twelve Jewish families arrived in Gunnison, Utah, to establish a Jewish agricultural community. The group was part of the “Back to Soil” movement, which believed Jews needed to leave the city and live on farms. The…
Miracle of the Crickets
Most of us have heard the story about the 1848 Miracle of the Gulls. This week hear a new twist on that old tale – it’s the Miracle of the Crickets! In the summer of 1848, clouds of crickets swarmed into the Salt Lake Valley and threatened to…
Mixing the Sacred and the Secular in Beaver
The relationship between the desires of the spiritual community of Utah and the non-religious needs of the West characterize the growing Mormon frontier.In 1856, a small party of fifteen Mormon families left Parowan in Iron County intent on carving…
Mormons Sing At Mass
A friendship between a Mormon settler and a Catholic priest led to the performance of an all-Mormon choir at a high mass in St. George.In 1879, the Mormon Tabernacle in St. George became the site of a Catholic High Mass. Miners, many of them…
Salt Lake’s Catholic Diocese
In 1891, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City was formed from the old Vicariate of Utah and Eastern Nevada. Over 8,000 members, fifteen churches, and fourteen priests belonged to the new diocese.
Catholics appeared early on Utah’s religious…
The Box Elder Tabernacle Fire
An 1896 fire consumed the Box Elder State Tabernacle, just six years after the building had been dedicated.In 1896, LDS worshippers were just assembling for a morning meeting in the Box Elder Stake Tabernacle when the cry of “fire” rent the air.…
The Flag of the Kingdom
Why didn't the Mormon pioneers fly the Stars and Stripes to celebrate their entry into the Salt Lake Valley? Every year, on the 24th of July, people line the streets of Salt Lake and other Utah communities to wave the American flag in honor of the…
The Godbeites
A group of disaffected British Mormons and merchants formed the Godbeite movement after openly declaring their opposition to the LDS Church.In October 1869, a group of men who had been converted to Mormonism in Great Britain openly declared their…
The Holy Trinity Church
In 1905, Utah's first Eastern Orthodox church—Holy Trinity—was dedicated. The church, which fronted 4th South, became the center of spiritual life for many eastern and southern Europeans who lived in Salt Lake City and around the Intermountain…
The Morrisites
Eight members of a Mormon fringe group were killed by militiamen in south Weber County.In 1858, Mormon immigrant Joseph Morris sent a letter to LDS Church president Brigham Young naming himself as the church’s true leader. A convert to Mormonism…