Utah Stories from the Beehive Archive

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Utah's snowy peaks and valleys became the stage for athletes from around the world during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake. But the Games were much more than a sporting competition. For 17 days at the dawn of a new millennium, 3.5 billion…

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The nationwide depression of the 1890s produced unprecedented levels of unemployment.  One unfortunate casualty of the resulting stress and anxiety was Mary Cook, a young mother from Utah County. In 1894, a young mother from Pleasant Grove named…

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People living in Utah have been managing water to support agriculture for over a thousand years. Using tools and techniques perfected by their ancestors, these ancient farmers manipulated water and adapted to their dry environment in order to…

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Meet Frank Chester Robertson, the famous Utah author who made his living writing popular Westerns that belied his own life of desperation on the Mormon frontier.Frank Robertson wasn’t exactly the kind of writer groomed in literary circles.  Born…

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Confections are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States and Utahns currently buy candy at the highest rate in the nation – almost double the US average. It’s been that way for at least a century.Utahns have long had a sweet tooth. In…

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Do you love your work? Georgie White did. Her free spirit and appetite for Western landscapes and ferocious rivers led to a long, passionate career.What’s YOUR passion?  Veteran adventurer Georgie White turned her passion into a career by…

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The Mexican Mural Renaissance is one of the most famous art movements in modern history. Learn how a blond-haired, blued-eyed, 20-year-old from Salt Lake City became a Mexican Muralist.  In 1924, Utah judge Edward Higgins put his twenty-year-old…

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Meet Barney Flanagan and learn how it fell to him to keep corruption out of government-funded work-relief jobs in Utah during the early years of the Great Depression.When you hear about shortages during the Great Depression, you probably imagine…

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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,…

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Meet AnnaBelle Weakley – known as the “Queen of 25th Street” – and learn how her entrepreneurial instinct and civic spirit transformed her Ogden community.During the mid-twentieth century, there was no railroad hub in Utah busier than Ogden,…

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It may come as a surprise to learn that in late 19th century Utah – an era with great constraints on women’s work – that prostitution offered at least some women a path to a powerful career.In the late 1800s, railroads and urban growth spurred…

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Meet prominent socialite and millionaire Susanna Bransford, who built her fortune on the back of Utah’s mining boom.Susanna Bransford – Park City’s infamous “Silver Queen” – epitomizes Utah’s glamorous Gilded Age.  But Bransford…

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As Americans, we extol the value of an “honest living,” but what about work that is less than honest? Butch Cassidy was a Utah boy with a penchant for wild living who paid his way using any means necessary.While considered unsavory, many…

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Main streets throughout postwar Utah depended on conspicuous signage to entice passersby to stop and shop. Learn how one Utah company used eye-catching neon to meet that demand.Walk down any main street in Utah and you might notice relics of a recent…

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It might be easy to think that the production of folk art isn’t really “work.” But whether or not folk artists make a living through their creativity, their labors require hard-earned mastery of skills. Learn about two Utah women whose art was…

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Many Utahns look forward to – or worry about – a comfortable retirement. But having the financial security to leave paid work after a long career is a concept that is relatively modern.When Effie Merrill’s husband died in 1915, there were few…

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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…

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Did you know that before Prohibition, Utah was home to fifteen breweries? Some were among the biggest and best in the West. Learn about Utah’s early beer brewers and their specialized craft.Ask any beer brewer – or any beer connoisseur – and…

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You’ve seen her. She wears the red bandanna and a blue collared shirt, flexing her bicep with a look that says, “get to work.” She’s Rosie the Riveter, and Utah had an army of them.When American men deployed to the front lines during World…

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Starting in the 1840s, government explorers began to survey and map the Intermountain West more thoroughly. Meet Leonard Swett, a wealthy young man from Chicago who came West with the U.S. Geological Survey.Among the first government workers in Utah…
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