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Ingenuity & Engineering: Green River’s Hastings Ranch Waterwheel
You know those world-famous Green River melons? Well, they need lots of water to build that juicy goodness. Learn how one farm along the Green River solved the problem of getting water to its fields.
The town of Green River, Utah, is known for its…
Intermountain Indian School
The “I” is fading fast on the mountainside above Brigham City, Utah. Winter snows threaten to erase it for good and with it, the memory of one of Utah’s more significant stories: The Intermountain Indian School, a federally-run Native American…
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…
Isom Dart
The mysterious murder of an African-American rancher in Daggett County.In 1900, African-American rancher Isom Dart was gunned down while walking from his cabin to his corral in Brown’s Park, a valley that straddles the borders of Utah, Colorado,…
It's a Bird! It's a Plane!
Airplanes played a pivotal role in attracting tourism to one southern Utah town. On September 27, 1920 the first airplane cast its shadow over Cedar City, Utah. Who was flying it? And why were they flying there? In the early 1920s,…
James Farrell
The record left behind by an Irish brickmaker living in Salt Lake City provides a unique insight into the life (and strange death) of one of Utah’s immigrants.A little more than 112 years ago, an Irish immigrant named James Farrell was found dead…
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…
Jean Baptiste, Grave Robber
The mysterious disappearance of a grave robber who literally stole the clothes off of people’s backs.When George Clawson dug up his brother Moroni’s body a week after it had been buried in a Salt Lake’s cemetery, he made the startling discovery…
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…
Joe Hill
Joe Hill has become a deeply ingrained part of Utah folklore. The Wobbly songwriter was executed for murder in the state in the early 1900s.At the turn of the twentieth century, the labor movement in the United States was on the ascendance as workers…
John Charles Frémont: Ad Man for Manifest Destiny
Explorer John Charles Fremont’s belief in “Manifest Destiny” paved the way for Western migration. By the early 1840s, US leaders in favor of Western expansion lobbied for better surveys of the territory and reliable maps. The US government…
John Christopher Cutler
Learn about the political career and mysterious suicide of Utah's second governor, John Christopher Cutler. In 1846, John Christopher Cutler was born in Sheffield, England to a merchant family. After converting to Mormonism, the Cutlers picked up…
John Lyon, Utah’s Own Robert Burns
John Lyon’s popular Mormon poetry and hymns secured his place in the hearts of many Mormon poetry lovers.In 1853, Scottish weaver and poet John Lyon immigrated to Utah after joining the LDS church. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, to working-class…
John Muir in Utah
Naturalist John Muir found himself in Salt Lake City in the late 1800s. Muir was attracted by the dazzling landscape of the Great Salt Lake and Oquirrh Mountains, and wrote effusively about Utah’s scenery.In 1877, naturalist and future Sierra Club…
John Wesley Powell's First Run of the Colorado River
More than 140 years ago, on August 30, 1869, six men in two wooden boats emerged into open country from the high cliffs and rough waters of the Grand Canyon. They were “blackened, bearded, emaciated, in rags,” and down to their last stash of…
John Wesley Powell's Hydraulic West
A map of the United States is a familiar sight in Utah’s classrooms. But if we had listened to one of America’s most visionary scientists more than one hundred years ago, Utah’s state borders would look totally different today. Maps shape how…
Joseph Hansen: Right-Hand Man of Leon Trotsky
The 1940 assassination in Mexico City of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky has an odd Utah connection in Joseph Hansen, whose journey took him from a childhood in Richfield, Utah, to the deathbed of one of the most important leaders of the 20th…
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…
Justice Sutherland
In 1922, English-born George Sutherland was nominated to serve on the US Supreme Court. To date, he is the only Utahn to ever hold the position.In 1862, George Sutherland, Utah’s only U. S. Supreme Court justice to date, was born in…
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.…