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Martha Hughes Cannon
The story of an ambitious and successful young woman who lived in polygamy.In the late nineteenth century, Mormons in Utah practiced polygamy, an institution seen as barbaric by the rest of the country. One polygamous wife found plural marriage both…
The Founding of SOCIO
The creation of the Spanish Speaking Organization for Community, Integrity, and Opportunity in Salt Lake City sought to identify problems of the Spanish-speaking minority. This group worked on behalf of the community to improve equality and access to…
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…
The Valley Tan
As the Utah War settled to an occupation of the Utah Territory, Kirk Anderson, with financial backing from John Hartnett, started Utah’s second newspaper the Valley Tan, targeting Camp Floyd’s population of soldiers as well as the Gentiles…
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…
Julius Taylor and the Broad Ax
For four years Julius Taylor operated his black newspaper, The Broad Ax, for African Americans living in Utah. Taylor was not only a racial minority in Utah, he was also non-religious and a democrat.In the 1890s there were about six hundred African…
The Eagle Emporium
The Eagle Emporium remains the Salt Lake City’s “only commercial structure built prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad.”In 1864, English immigrant William Jennings opened a mercantile business in the Eagle Emporium. The…
Samuel Newhouse
Samuel Newhouse helped to shape Salt Lake City’s skyline through his real estate investments.Samuel Newhouse hit the ground running when he arrived in Utah in 1896. Born in New York to Russian-Jewish parents, Newhouse had been a lawyer in…
Simon Bamberger
The fourth governor of the state, Simon Bamberger, was Utah’s first non-Mormon and only Jewish governor.Ninety-two years ago, Simon Bamberger was elected governor of the state of Utah by more than 4,000 votes, leading what the Davis County Clipper…
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 Park City Dynamite Outrage
An explosion reverberated through the sleeping town of Park City in 1894. Residents woke up to the discovery that someone had planted dynamite under the front stairs of a local house.On the morning of May 3, 1894, a tremendous blast reverberated…
The Woman’s Exponent
Mormon women wrote and published a newspaper for and about Mormon women. The paper had a small circulation and was replaced with the Relief Society Magazine shortly after the newspaper declined.In 1872, a unique publication for women emerged in Utah.…
Plum Alley
Plum Alley, a narrow lane in downtown Salt Lake City, marks what used to be the heart of a vibrant Chinatown.Today, if you find yourself in downtown Salt Lake City walking along Second South past the Regent Street Parking Terrace, you’ll notice a…
Elizabeth Wood Kane
After Elizabeth Wood Kane arrived in Utah with her husband, her letters home became the manuscript for a book about Utah culture. Her writings shed some important light on the frontier and Mormon social customs.Most students of Utah history are at…
How Antelope Island Got Its Name
Antelope Island was named by the famous American explorer John Charles Fremont during his travels around the Great Salt Lake.In the fall of 1845, the famous American explorer John Charles Fremont crossed over the Rocky Mountains into eastern Utah…
Kanosh
Kanosh, a leader of the Pahvant Utes, used negotiation with white settlers to ensure the survival of his people.In 1856, Kanosh, an influential leader among central Utah’s Pahvant Utes, delivered a speech before Utah’s territorial legislature.…
T. H. Jefferson’s Map
A mysterious traveler, T.H. Jefferson published a map of the California Trail in 1849. The map contained valuable information about the waterless stretch of desert west of the Great Salt Lake.In 1849, a map of the California Trail was published by a…
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…
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…
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…