Utah Stories from the Beehive Archive: Recent Episodes
Utah Humanities
Tune in for a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal — and peculiar — events in Utah history! With all of the history and none of the dust, the Beehive Archive is a fun way to catch up on Utah’s past.
Have you ever seen a wildfire exploding up a mountain or heard one roaring through a forest? For Northern Ute Indian Firefighters, that was just another day at work.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
The reality of an eight-hour workday remains elusive for many Utah workers, but it is still considered the national standard, and one we take for granted. Learn how Utah became the first state to adopt the eight-hour workday.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Utah’s romance with the movie industry began in the 1920s silent film era and hasn’t diminished since. Nearly a thousand motion pictures and television series have filmed in Utah, bringing millions each year to the state. Learn how Hollywood first put Utah to work.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Long work hours and blurry lines between personal and professional lives is hardly a modern dilemma. But imagine if your employer controlled not just your hours and your paycheck, but where you spent your off hours and how you spent your money. Employees of the P.W. Madsen Furniture Store knew just how that felt.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Mary Nakaishi and her husband Uke devoted their life’s work to helping Ogden’s poor get back on their feet and earned the reputation of Ogden’s “Angels of 25th Street".
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn how Ogden's families and business-owners used the prohibition against alcohol to invent new styles of work -- and how law enforcement worked to stop them.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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 their work.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
You call, you text, you surf the net. You spend countless hours on your phone. Learn how the telephone transformed Utah's remote Uinta Basin.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
The depth, the dark, and the dangers inherent in coal mining created a uniquely hazardous work environment for miners in Utah at the turn of the twentieth century.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn how one family went literally from "bags to riches" and how a son honored his mother's legacy by naming after her one of Salt Lake's most noted buildings.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Much has been made of the early Mormons' communal work ethic and the effective redistribution of resources within their communities. But how did they actually organize these efforts?
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Hill Air Force Base is Utah's sixth largest employer and military spending creates over $9 billion in economic activity for the State. Learn about the historic roots of Utah's "Military Industrial Complex."
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn about Utah's nineteenth century midwives, who were unusual in that they were actually paid for their work as medical providers.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Wings flashing in the sunlight, raucous calls filling the air, and tons of bird excrement coating the rocks. Learn about guano gathering out on the Great Salt Lake.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn how Utah women won the right to vote not once, but twice.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn how a famous historian used her girlhood memories of Carbon County to completely change the way we understand Utah's past.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
The Woman's Exponent magazine served an unusual role in advocating for Utah's working women during the late nineteenth century.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
American industrialism at the turn of the 20th century brought Utah women out of their homes and into the workplace. There they faced inequality and wage disparity.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Verla Gean Miller FarmanFarmaian -- beloved teacher to many Utah school children -- made one decision to travel that set her on a fantastic journey that changed her life.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Elizabeth Randall Cumming came to Salt Lake in 1858 as the wife of Utah's first non-Mormon Territorial Governor. Her expectations of the journey were defied every step of the way.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
How would you feel if you were a refugee and had to flee your home and move to another country? Meet two Utahns who did just that.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Utah's first Jewish congregation, B'nai Israel, remains a symbol of the state's first Jewish pioneers.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Utah has become home to people of many backgrounds and cultures since the first Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. What brought these people to Utah?
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Chinese immigrant laborers built the railroad from California to Utah.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
A group of Russian pioneers sought a place to build their religious colony far from cities and government interference. Where else would they come but Utah?
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
The voyage of Hawaiian Islanders to the windswept desert of Skull Valley could only have happened in Utah.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
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 Gunnison colony, called Clarion, was one of many established throughout the United States, Canada, and Argentina.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Imagine you live in 19th century rural Utah. Christmas is coming and your children look forward to a celebration with Santa and gifts. There are no stores, no mail orders. How will you meet their expectations?
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Utah's pivotal 1919 Americanization Act impacted the state's vibrant immigrant population.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
A lot of Americans still dream of the American West as a place of freedom and opportunity. But for workers at the turn of the twentieth century, it was never quite that simple.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn about the infamous labor padrone Leonidis Skliris and why he was known as "Czar of the Greeks" among Murray-Midvale smelters.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn about Ute leader Chipeta and how her search for peace meant the loss of her home and way of life.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
Learn about the forced relocation of Ute people from lush central Utah to the remote Uinta Basin.
Tune in to the Beehive Archive, a two-minute look at some of the most pivotal—and peculiar—events in Utah's history. Catch the show weekly on your favorite podcast channel or check out the whole collection at utahhumanities.org/stories.
The Bear River Massacre was an event that changed the landscape of northern Utah and the fate of the Shoshone people.
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 boarding school.
Thousands of Japanese Americans were forced into exile in the Utah desert during World War II.
A key figure in the struggle over polygamy was US Supreme Court Justice Charles Zane. His tenure on the bench saw hundreds of people convicted of illegal cohabitation or polygamy, leading some to call his work an “antipolygamy crusade”.
In 2011 Utah state lawmakers voted to designate the Browning M1911 pistol as the official state firearm. The gun would be the latest addition to a surprising collection of historic state symbols.
The murder of Greek labor agent, George Demetrakopolous, and the hunt for his killer in 1908.
The Utah History Fair is an academic program that has been getting Utah kids excited about history for thirty years.
Despite Utah’s lack of direct involvement in the Civil War, they played a key role in the interests of leaders in Washington over the struggle for control of the western territories.
Learn why the US Congress had a problem in 1850, and how its solution led to the creation, 160 years ago this month, of a place called Utah.
Women in the southern Utah town of Kanab made history- and a difference- in 1912. The entire town board was comprised of women, and their agenda was to make Kanab a better place to live.
Keetley Farm was an agricultural settlement for Japanese Americans during World War II.
The anti-war movement came to Salt Lake City in 1969, culminating in a rally that the Salt Lake Tribune called “the largest peace demonstration in Utah history.”
Meet AnnaBelle Weakley – known as the “Queen of 25th Street” – and learn how her entrepreneurial instinct and civic spirit transformed her Ogden community.
In 1899, Ramon Gonzalez, his wife Guadalupe, and his children Romana and Prudencio, left their home in Dixon, New Mexico, to settle in Monticello, Utah. A wagon carried all their household possessions, while a few head of livestock followed on the hoof.
The federal termination and restoration of the lands of the Paiute Indian Tribe illustrate the complicated relationship between state, federal, and tribal claims to land.
Manuelito was one of the last Navajo leaders to surrender to the US military in the late 1860s.
Kanosh, a leader of the Pahvant Utes, used negotiation with white settlers to ensure the survival of his people.
A bizarre political moment in Utah's long trek towards statehood exposes the tension between politics and religion in the Deseret.
Nearly 600 enlisted African American soldiers and their families migrated to Salt Lake City in 1896. These soldiers discovered that Utahns’ attitudes towards African Americans were much like the rest of the country, and faced racial discrimination during their time in Utah.
This week, learn how the most famous American theater actress of the early 20th Century used gender-bending roles to push the early boundaries of a queer aesthetic.
The fourth governor of the state, Simon Bamberger, was Utah’s first non-Mormon and only Jewish governor.
Plum Alley, a narrow lane in downtown Salt Lake City, marks what used to be the heart of a vibrant Chinatown.
A small area of downtown Salt Lake City used to be “Japan Town”, an area that served as the focus of the city’s Japanese American community. The area was demolished in the 1960s in order to make room for the Salt Palace.
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.
Many people know about the Japanese internment camp Topaz, but Utah also held Italian and German prisoners of war during World War II.
Learn about Utah’s convict labor system and how prisoners actually formed the backbone of some of our early public works projects – especially road construction.
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 opportunity in Utah.
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.
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.
The early political history of Utah women began with the 1870 law that gave women the right to vote.
Female Methodist missionaries in Utah forged relationships with women across religious lines, protecting and advocating for women in need throughout the state.
Voters from Utah went crazy for Democratic presidential hopeful William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896.
The presence of the Ku Klux Klan was not just limited to the southern United States. In fact, the KKK had grown enough to march through the streets of Salt Lake City in the early 1920s.
The old Hotel Utah has a storied history of hospitality that is shadowed by the racial prejudice common throughout Utah right into the 1960s.
In the mid-nineteen eighties, global pressure was mounting against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Learn how persistent student activists at the University of Utah forced their campus to confront its connections to an oppressive regime half a world away.
Welsh immigrants brought with them valuable skills that laid the foundation for Utah’s early mining industry.
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.
The United States has a long history of limiting immigration and managing migrants once they are here, including a campaign to register non-citizen immigrants living in Utah.
Over long years of colonization, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation faced severe setbacks. But the Tribe continued to adapt to new conditions and found ways to preserve their culture and traditions.
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.
Utah history isn’t just about the people who lived and worked here. It’s also about some of the oldest living organisms in our state – trees! Learn more about our arborous elders.
Nine Mile Canyon contains an estimated 10,000 rock art sites created over a thousand years ago, and that’s just the beginning of the canyon's historic and cultural value. But natural gas exploration and extraction nearby pose challenges to preservation efforts.
When you flip your light switch, do you know which part of rural Utah your electricity is coming from? Historically, fuel for the energy grid came from rural areas in the form of fossil fuels. But even as utilities transition to alternative energy, that energy is still sourced in rural Utah.
The switch from Utah being a net importer of turkeys to becoming a substantial exporter in the 1920s can be attributed to the efforts of one man -- Benjamin Brown -- and the poultry co-operative he organized.
Today, we have 24 hour news channels and TikTok to share breaking news and current trends. But for Utahns isolated by distance in the early 20th century, the radio did a tremendous job of connecting residents in rural communities to each other and to the larger world.
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.
Just like alfalfa fields and amazing vistas, art is easy to find in rural Utah. It is also a major economic driver.
Living in a historic home can be lovely – but for Spring City residents in the 1970s, the influx of so-called "outsiders" sprucing up pioneer-era historic dwellings was a source of contention.
Running underneath Cedar City is a concrete tunnel that is now a hang-out for adventurous kids and graffiti artists. But, what was this secret pathway originally intended to do?
Today, Salt Lake City’s urban sprawl and poor air quality are noteworthy, but the problem isn’t exactly new. Public parks were once seen as an antidote to the bad effects of increasing urbanization -- kind of like a little bit of the "country" in the city, if you will.
Every weekend across Utah, dancers fill nightclubs twisting to the latest tunes. But did you know that one of the most extravagant and celebrated dance halls in the Beehive State was found in the remote town of Delta? Learn what all the fuss was about.
Demand for copper in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reshaped Utah’s once-rural Bingham Canyon into an enormous open-pit mine supported by thriving company towns. But that same demand for copper went on to consume those same company towns.
Today, remote learning usually happens over a computer. But did you know that Utah colleges once used airplanes to bring professors directly to classrooms in rural areas? These "flying professor" programs represent just one chapter in a longer history of distance education.
When local officials in southern Utah's Grand County declared independence from the federal Bureau of Land Management in 1980, they took rhetoric of small government and individual freedom to a whole new level.
When you think of Utah's desert lands, do you picture a pristine wilderness or an arid waste? How we treat this landscape depends on the value that we assign to it.
Every autumn, large crowds descend on the small rural town of Brigham City for "Peach Days." It's the oldest harvest festival in Utah. And it all started with a one dollar investment in peach pits back in 1855.
The United States federal government controls about 65% of land in Utah. The goal of maintaining these lands for public use tends to polarize Utahns. But there was a time when Utah leaders were not averse to federal regulation of public lands. (Wait...what?)
Canyonlands is more than just Utah’s third national park. Its designation in 1964 occurred after a fight over who exactly public lands are meant for.
If you could provide drinking water for thousands of people by displacing twenty-seven farming families, would you do it? Utah leaders faced this very dilemma in the 1950s. Find out what they decided
When Carbon County coal miners from the National Miners Union went on strike in 1933, their wives, sisters, and daughters were right there beside them. These women proved to be formidable adversaries in the fight for workers’ rights.
Urban spaces in twentieth century Utah are known for their vice -- gambling, prostitution and more. But did you know the last brothel to close in Utah was actually in a rural town?
In the 1940s, new roads, affordable cars, and an interest in national parks meant that more Americans were packing up their vehicles and hitting the open road. For Black travelers driving through rural areas of Utah, the Green Book was a vital resource for getting around safely.
There are only three roads in Utah that bridge the Colorado River, and only a handful of crossings. The ghost town of Dewey is one of those places and early settlers of the region made good use of this crossing.
A former railroad and ranching hub, the tiny settlement of Cisco became a ghost town after highway travel through the remote area was rerouted. But is Cisco still a ghost town today?
Down a bumpy canyon road in the Book Cliffs of southeastern Utah, curious travelers can find the ghost town of Sego. Named for Utah’s state flower, it’s a dusty coal town with a colorful past.
Saddles, denim, country music, and… drag queens? It’s an unexpected combination but an important one for community and belonging in queer rural Utah.
So, you are a giant aerospace company and you want to build a rocket plant: what do you look for? This week, learn how one Utah town met all the requirements to become a center for the US rocket industry and how that decision forever changed its future.
In 1928, a women’s club in Moab adopted an official song that crowed: “In this little town of ours, we have a literary club, and we derive from it everything good, it helps the town and public in numerous ways.” Learn more about these women and their service.
Do you know where your food comes from? Utahns once depended on local butchers for fresh meat. But, in the early 1900s business boomed for the Ogden Union Stockyards, signaling a shift in how and where Utahns purchased their food.
Just around 45 miles west of Salt Lake City is a vast landscape shrouded in mystery and controversy. It’s also a holding place for some of the US military’s deadliest materials.
Potato growing clubs became all the rage in the early 20th century as interest in a formal agricultural education grew.
World War II and the Cold War brought the military to much of rural Utah, transforming those places in the process. The economic boost that followed was long-lasting in some communities, but devastatingly short-lived in others.
Rugged individualism is practically synonymous with the American West, and mountain men are the embodiment of that ideal. But the ideal tends to mask the real significance – and legacy – of mountain men in Utah.
Utah is home to five national parks that protect stunning red-rock landscapes. All but one of them began as a national monument. What's the difference, you may ask? Learn all about it.
Frontier life in late-nineteenth century Utah was rough. Today, many rural Utahns still struggle with access to medical care, but once upon a time midwives traveled throughout rural Utah, providing healthcare services to those in isolated areas.
When the United States was was created in the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson had a vision of a nation built by individual family farmers. Here in Utah – we love farmers. But did we really live up to Jefferson’s ideal?
Motels dotted Utah’s highways throughout the twentieth century, beckoning motorists to pull off the road and spend their tourist dollars in rural towns. Now that hotel chains dominate accommodation options, what happened to these locally owned motels?
Did you know that Utah is haunted? Our state has an estimated one hundred ghost towns. While reasons for their abandonment vary, ghost towns throughout rural Utah have one thing in common: our desire to idealize a lost past and try to connect to it in real time.
During World War II, a city of more than 8,000 people rose out of Utah's desert for three years, and then returned to dust. Find out more, after this.
The rural Utah town of Orderville was once a communal utopia – until a single pair of pants scandalized the whole settlement.
This week learn about one family who made it their mission to preserve nature in the heart of a growing city – and they succeeded!
Before food blogs and Pinterest, Utah women shared their best recipes in community cookbooks. More than just recipes, these books kept rural foodways and food culture alive.
Back in the 1950s, Utah’s budget-slashing governor J. Bracken Lee wanted to close the first institution of higher education in eastern Utah – which he actually helped establish! But Utahns balked at his plan and stopped it.
Nineteenth-century painters used Utah’s impressive landscape to promote an awe-inspiring vision of the American West through their art.
The creation of Carbon County in 1894 resulted from a rift between Mormon agriculturalists and non-Mormon miners, and illustrates the struggle over identity in rural Utah.
Every rural Utah town has their own special Main Street. In Carbon County, Helper’s main street tells a rich historic story about change and continuity in its unique community.
Today, Utah Valley is known for its rapid development and urban growth. But the valley just east of Utah Lake used to be farmland and orchards. Find out how wartime transformation brought prosperity to this region -- but also irrevocable change.
Artists have long idealized labor and land in the American West. But what motivates an artist to paint a haystack? The answer may surprise you.
African Americans living and traveling through Utah in the early twentieth century had to delicately navigate the increasing power of the Ku Klux Klan, which contributed to an acceptance of racially-motivated violence.
She’s big, pink, and has long beautiful eyelashes. Learn more about this unique rural Utah icon.
American mink are cousins to otters and ferrets, and their fur is exceptionally soft and dense. While times have changed, mink furs raised on rural Utah farms were once the height of luxury fashion.
Throughout the holiday season, Utahns celebrate by trimming trees, drinking hot chocolate, skiing, and... bird watching? Yep, they do! Learn more about this longstanding Christmas tradition.
A federal agent in Colorado tried to force a band of Utes to take up farming. This would come to impact not just Utes in Utah, but national Indian policy.
The natural beauty and recreational opportunities offered by the Wasatch Range have long brought people seeking an enhanced quality of life. But how did the arrival of Hollywood change the culture and economy of this corner of Utah?
On the east side of the Wasatch Mountains, you can find a little slice of Switzerland right here in Utah. Learn more about Midway’s Swiss Days celebration.
In rural Utah, social dances were important events that brought townsfolk together, not only for fun, but to support each other and their community.
This Thanksgiving, you might enjoy a meal that includes a roasted turkey. What are the chances it was born and raised here in Utah?
Most city dwellers live close enough to a public library to visit regularly. But for many readers in rural Utah, the library must visit them! Learn more about Utah’s history of libraries on wheels.
Conflict between Brigham Young and US Army Colonel Patrick Connor personified the tension between mining versus agriculture as suitable ways of life in the Utah Territory. But the reality was not quite as stark as either man made it out to be.
When Congress passed the Desert Land Act in 1877, the intention was to improve the prospects of individual family farmers homesteading in the arid West. But what actually happened was far different.
Today, our mail is delivered in large trucks and often takes just a day or two to reach its final destination. But for one Utah town, mail was delivered by mule well into the twentieth century.
Famous photographer Dorthea Lange captured the heartbreaking struggles and resiliency of rural Utah during the Great Depression. Find out more about Lange and her extraordinary photographs.
Tensions between the old and new are not new to rural Utahns – but in 1970s Park City, these tensions erupted into an actual brawl between two seemingly opposite groups: hippies and miners.
Industry in rural towns often relies on the markets of larger cities. But, such reliance means that rural communities may be vulnerable to shifts in public policy and opinion that impact long-standing ways of life.
Atomic testing in the nearby Nevada desert had devastating effects on rural Utah communities, but activists calling themselves "Downwinders" banded together to demand action from the federal government.
If you visit Lagoon Amusement Park, you may stumble across a modest stone building in the park’s Pioneer Village that used to be Coalville’s old Rock School House. In the late 1800s, this small structure supported a thriving rural community in Summit County.
Hailing from the mountainous border region between Spain and France, Basques are a tightly-knit and proud ethnic group. Find out how Basque immigrants to the Intermountain West maintained their identity, community, and traditions so far from home.
Every rural person and place has a story. Change is part of that story. While many Utahns identify with rural landscapes, work, and culture, the very idea of "rural" is changing today.
Sun Tunnels, an art installation by Nancy Holt, has become a unique part of Utah’s heritage.
You call, you text, you surf the net. You spend countless hours on your phone. Learn how the telephone transformed Utah’s remote Uinta Basin.
Barred from lucrative work and hounded by local residents, it took years of discrimination against Chinese workers to erase their contributions to Park City.
The depth, the dark, and the dangers inherent in coal mining created a uniquely hazardous work environment for miners in Utah at the turn of the twentieth century.
Hill Air Force Base is Utah’s sixth largest employer and military spending creates over $9 billion in economic activity for the State. Learn about the historic roots of Utah’s “Military Industrial Complex.”
A military hospital in Brigham City helped wounded soldiers and transformed the community during World War II.
Wings flashing in the sunlight, raucous calls filling the air, and tons of bird excrement coating the rocks. Learn about guano gathering out on the Great Salt Lake.
When she came to Utah to support striking coal miners, the Deseret News described her as a “vulgar, heartless, and vicious creature.” Learn about the “Miner’s Angel,” labor organizer “Mother” Jones.
Learn about the forced relocation of Ute people from lush central Utah to the remote Uinta Basin.
Thousands of Japanese Americans were forced into exile in the Utah desert during World War II.
A group of Russian pioneers sought a place to build their religious colony far from cities and government interference. Where else would they come but Utah?
Like many Utahns, Harold Seeholzer loved snow and skiing. But how did his enthusiasm for outdoor recreation turn into one of Cache Valley’s most notable ski resorts?
The voyage of Hawaiian Islanders to the windswept desert of Skull Valley could only have happened in Utah.
A grassroots movement of Utah citizens helped derail government plans to base the MX Missile System in Utah’s Great Basin.
Those who journeyed to Moab during the uranium mining boom that swept Utah in the 1950s and 1960s changed the tiny town forever.
The United Order of Orderville, a Utopian living experiment, thrived for a decade in southern Utah.
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 Gunnison colony, called Clarion, was one of many established throughout the United States, Canada, and Argentina.
Historic Copperton is a tiny town that defied the boom-bust cycle typical of mining towns.
The all-American game of baseball helped new immigrants adjust to life in Utah during the early 1900s.
Why would a bunch of young men from New York have spent the summer of 1933 digging ditches in Utah’s Willard Canyon?
A story of the fundraising efforts to help the victims of one of the deadliest mining disasters in American history, the 1900 explosion at Utah’s Winter Quarters Mine.
Every summer, thousands of people flee to the cool waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah’s northeast corner. But few of them would know about the little town of Linwood buried beneath the water’s surface.
Ghost Towns of the old west are generally relics of the mining industry, but Old La Sal in San Juan County is a now-deserted cow town.
Whether it’s cancer or autoimmune, it’s common today to see people wearing folded ribbons in solidarity against a disease. But did you know AIDS was the first disease ever to have such a ribbon?
How did a Jewish, Ukranian violin player become one of Utah’s most beloved local celebrities? Learn about the life of one extraordinary man.
Baseball in the nineteenth century was more than just Salt Lake City’s “favorite pastime.” The game became an outlet for the tensions between Mormons and the growing number of residents who did not adhere to the dominant faith and lifestyle.
What began over a century ago as a field for airplane stunts has become one of the country’s top thirty busiest airports. But did you know Salt Lake City's airport has a wildlife division?
Museums are usually established in the public trust and in the public interest. But one museum in Salt Lake City’s Marmalade District caused a whole whirlwind of drama -- and even a state Supreme Court case.
The 1960s were a time of upheaval, ushering in changes in politics, music, and society. Utah was not immune to the growing political consciousness of the youth movement, and nowhere was that more obvious than in Utah's folk music revival.
One of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the Salt Lake Valley didn’t start out that way. Find out how Rose Park changed from a subdivision restricted to white people to become the vibrant community we know today.
Rose Park began as an affordable, working class neighborhood. But the true costs for the subdivision would not be revealed until decades later.
An impressive mansion on Salt Lake City’s west side serves as a reminder of Utah's beer history and the prosperous titan who ran the largest brewery in the West.
Salt Lake City’s “Hobbitville” is not actually a neighborhood for small, shoeless, fantasy people who live underground. Although it IS home to a colorful pride of peacocks. Learn about the real history of Allen Park.
A towering arch made of boulders. Biblical quotes carved into stone pavers. A bird’s house with dozens of entrances. This is not a surreal dream land, but Gilgal Garden, a sculpture park in downtown Salt Lake City. Learn the history of this special place.
In 1897, Utah passed a law regulating hat size in theaters and public places. One might ask WHY? Who did it affect? Was it warranted? And just how big is too big anyway?
The heart of Salt Lake City’s countercultural movement found its home in a small, independent headshop in the 1960s and 70s.
Maybe you’ve heard of the Great Saltair Pleasure Resort as a prime example of Utah’s early pleasure resorts. But have you ever heard of Fuller’s Hill? At about 1100 East and 400 South in Salt Lake City, this little-known park had a covered dancing hall, ice cream saloon, a swing set, and even a trapeze.
The story of water in Utah is complex, and rifts often arise in unexpected places. The fact that water sustains us all can sometimes be easy to overlook, but ultimately it an issue we cannot ignore and to which we must constantly adapt.
When we say “water is power” we are sometimes actually talking about electricity! Find out how harnessing steam electrified Utah for thousands of residents in the 20th century.
Firefighting is dangerous work. It also requires a lot of water! Today we are used to seeing fire hydrants in every neighborhood, but for many Utahns at the turn of the 20th century, such community water infrastructure was completely new.
Urban legends tell of the “Witch’s Cabin” in downtown Salt Lake’s City Creek Canyon, but is it really haunted? Learn its real history.
Public health campaigns have long sparked fears of government overreach. In the mid-twentieth century, for example, dentists lobbied to add fluoride to Utah’s water supply to support tooth health. Learn more about the decades-long public uproar.
If you’ve ever been on a river trip, you probably didn’t bring along your hair curlers or a nightgown. But for women rafters in the 1930s, keeping up gender norms was part of the river experience.
If you or your dog have ever gotten sick drinking untreated water, you've probably heard of giardia. Chlorine is regularly used in water treatment plants across Utah today to fight this deadly water parasite, but some of its earliest opponents worried about its effects on human health – and pickles.
During the depths of the Great Depression, thousands of young men went to work on over one thousand water projects in Utah. Learn about some of the projects that survive to this day.
Who owns common sources of water? As Mormons began to spread south throughout Utah Territory in the 1850s, conflict over watering holes in the desert turned deadly.
Most of us take for granted the luxury of having running water inside of our homes. But, indoor plumbing is a relatively new phenomenon that has made life significantly easier!
The Enterprise Dam in Utah's Washington County is an amazing example of how early Mormon settlers mastered the waters of the harsh desert using community effort. But did you know the process of building it was bursting with controversy and deluged with drama?
Utah communities regularly wish for more rainfall, especially during years of drought. But can they do more than just pray? Learn how scientists in the 1950s harnessed technology to make their own rain.
While it may seem like an isolated, desolate desert island, Antelope Island in Utah's Great Salt Lake has been an important source of fresh water for humans going back thousands of years.
Looking out at Great Salt Lake you may have seen it before – a flash of pink wings and long legs… wait, was that a Flamingo? Find out more about Great Salt Lake’s beloved pink visitor Floyd.
Many Utahns would shudder to think about swimming in Great Salt Lake’s smelly waters. But, in the early 1900s -- when the water was higher -- thousands of swimmers flocked to its shores to enjoy the Saltair Resort.
Travelers from all over the world come to hike Utah's famous Delicate Arch. But they often overlook the rich history of the humble log cabin sitting at its trailhead.
In Navajo belief systems, water is alive and a vital part of a healthy landscape. When Glen Canyon Dam blocked the flow of the Colorado River, a landscape that holds deep meaning in traditional Navajo spirituality was completely transformed.
In 1922, Utah joined the Colorado River Compact as arid Western states started to scramble for equal access to the waters of the Colorado River. But taming nature with this legal agreement did not come... naturally.
Maybe you’ve heard it before: “The Nile is the longest river in the world. The Amazon is the largest. But the Colorado is one of the hardest working.” Learn why.
Acid rain used to be a big problem in Salt Lake Valley. As local farmers sought to curb its impact, they found themselves getting “gaslit” about gas emissions from nearby smelters, both in court and in their own fields.
Utahns love to visit beautiful Utah Lake for recreation, but the lake’s dangerous conditions remind us to be wary of getting too comfortable on the water.
Floyd Dominy was more than a government bureaucrat. As commissioner for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, Dominy was a lightning rod for the controversy over humanity’s relationship to the natural environment and had an outsized impact on the American West.
Did you know that one of the oldest roller coasters in the world is right here in Utah? It all started with a pond and a dancehall called “Lagoon.” Learn more about one of Utah’s oldest amusement parks.
Water law in the West can be complicated. Find out how river runners helped the government decide who owns the riverbed of the Colorado Basin, and why that even matters to the public.
Underneath Lake Powell is a drowned ghost town that was once an important mining hub and crossroads for the Colorado River community.
Find out how a season of terrible floods left Salt Lake City residents with a memorable scene: their neighbors packing sandbags to create a river running down State Street.
When Utah joined the nation’s crusade against polio in the 1950s, officials weren't sure what to do about public pools. Were they a place where children got relief from their symptoms or a nexus for mass infection?
Dams are a vital part of Utah’s water infrastructure -- but they sometimes fail. A breach of the Mammoth Dam in 1917 sent millions of gallons of water rushing downstream, and exposed its poor conditions of construction and operation.
Utah has an insatiable demand for water, and the Bear River is one of northern Utah’s most abundant sources. Despite this, efforts to fully develop it have long been stymied by a combination of geography and politics.
Recreational boating became popular on Utah’s lakes during the late 1800s, and some entrepreneurs took major risks to make a profit. Learn about one captain who even went down with his ship!
Utah Lake was once an important and abundant source of fish and wildlife for the Timpanogos Ute people. But by the turn of the twentieth century, Utah Lake’s native fish species had almost completely vanished.
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.
Stereotyped as dirty and dangerous, Salt Lake City’s Westside was the last to receive sanitation improvements. The city’s slow response to public health concerns helped make the area’s bad reputation worse. Learn more about how public sewer systems affect communities.
For almost a hundred years, explorers and mapmakers recorded a river that ran west from Utah out to the Pacific Ocean, despite no such waterway ever even existing.
Southern Utah’s unreliable Virgin River prevented settlers from achieving their dream of taming the land to grow cotton.
The Central Utah Project – which is still under construction – began with plenty of optimism and ambition. But politics and the inherent difficulty of moving mountains nearly sank the project.
The vast plumbing infrastructure of the Central Utah Project is the culmination of Utah’s desires to move water to where we want it to be. Find out how complicated and contentious this endeavor has been.
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.
Utah’s limited water supply needs to be closely monitored! But this is nothing new. In Utah’s settler communities, the local watermaster was a vital figure, although not always the most popular one.
Utah boasts the greatest snow on earth, but the pristine powder isn’t always nature-made. The fake snow saves tourist seasons, but at what cost?
In the late 19th century, Black settlers in the Salt Lake Valley used the waters of Millcreek Canyon to create a thriving community of their own.
The search for more affordable, alternative energy sources is nothing new. Learn how a businessman in the late 1800s electrified rural Utah using a state-of-the-art hydroelectric system.
The colonization of northern Utah’s Cache Valley escalated tensions that led to the horrific 1863 massacre of Shoshone people at their winter camp on Bear River. Learn how the Shoshone have returned to the river and are reclaiming it as a healing ground for the future.
Located along the Utah-Idaho border, the Bear River is the source of life for Northwestern Shoshone people. They know it as Boa Ogoi and for hundreds of years, winters spent along its edge offered respite and rejuvenation.
Frequent droughts and a growing population continue to raise the stakes for water access in Utah. Learn about a drawn-out conflict over water in Salt Lake City that shows how tensions between agricultural and municipal water users are hardly new.
What is it about a body of water that brings people together? Learn about an infrastructure project on the Little Bear River that helped the Cache Valley community of Hyrum to flourish -- in more ways than one.
In the late 19th century, a Utah newspaper announced that the two whales swimming in Utah’s Great Salt Lake had added children to their family. Was this a scientific reality, or just a whale of a tale?
Winters in northern Utah’s Cache Valley are harsh. To survive and thrive, indigenous Shoshone peoples and Mormon settlers were faced with the question of “Will the challenges of winter make you or break you?”
The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge protects an important -- but incredibly vulnerable -- part of northern Utah’s ecosystem. This is no accident. Learn how a mysterious illness and community activism led to its creation.
Anyone who lives near Utah’s mountains knows how dangerous winter avalanches can be. Today, avalanches are closely monitored and relatively controlled. But it wasn’t always so. Learn about the 1897 avalanche in Provo Canyon that ended in tragedy.
The Utah Hot Springs Resort at the base of Ogden Canyon offered city dwellers an escape into nature -- but at what cost? Learn more about selling Ogden’s healing mineral springs.
Ancient caves in Utah’s arid West Desert may hold key information to Utah’s uncertain water future.
In the late 19th century, the town of Newton, Utah was almost abandoned. Crops died, there was no water for animals or people… So how did the town survive?
Maybe you’ve seen his paintings in Utah’s museums, or read his famous book called Our Inland Sea. Learn about 19th century artist Alfred Lambourne, who was Great Salt Lake’s biggest fan.
Here in arid Utah, our terminal lakes are so sensitive that even small-scale nineteenth-century agriculture produced measurable changes. Find out how early geologist Grove Karl Gilbert calculated this delicate balance.
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.
The uranium mining and milling industry in Utah has had a devastating effect on water that disproportionately affected the health and safety of Native American tribes.
Out in Utah’s West Desert is a massive $60 million infrastructure project that hasn’t been used in over thirty years. Can you guess what it is and why it was made?
Mark Twain famously joked that “Whiskey is for drinking, but water is for fighting over.” This week, find out how the struggle for water between two Utah towns led to a lawsuit that resulted in nearly an entire LDS ward being disfellowshipped.
The valley floor and cliffs of Clear Creek Canyon were sculpted over millions of years and evidence hints that humans moved along its waters as early as 8,000 years ago. You may have driven through this canyon yourself, but do you know the importance of this waterway to the generations of Native peoples who have lived there?
Public health is a common good that communities have long rallied around. In the early 20th Century, the highly infectious typhoid disease brought health experts and Utah’s citizens together to demand clean water and upgraded public water systems.
The 1934 drought that ravaged the nation was a natural disaster that came at the worst possible time for Utahns. Find out how officials helped guide the state through this catastrophe with help from the federal government.
The decisions we make to manage Utah's rivers are complex. The creation of dams has had long-term impacts, but today, scientists are developing water management models that reflect the needs of both people and fish.
Like most Utah communities in the early 20th Century, Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood lacked a public swimming pool. What’s a kid to do on a scorching summer day? Well, use the pond on the grounds of the nearby Utah State Prison, of course!
The Green River is a major physical divide in eastern Utah, yet it is also a lifeline for drinking water, agriculture, and recreation. Learn how the River has been a barrier and a bridge for one community along its banks.
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.
Steam locomotive engines need water – a lot of it. But here in Utah – the second driest state in the Lower 48 – finding water to feed these steam beasts was a real problem for the railroad companies. Learn more about how they solved this dilemma.
Ever wonder how people kept food cold before electricity? Learn how ice was harvested, stored, and used throughout Utah before freezers were common household appliances.
Water is a key part of Utah’s recreation scene, whether you’re skiing, snowboarding, sledding, or ice skating. Learn how Utah's residents used to love their winter thrills so much that they shut down entire city streets to make way for snowy fun.
Have you ever looked out over Great Salt Lake and thought, “I’d really like to grow oysters there?” You probably haven’t. Learn how Utahns have tried — and failed — to cultivate this unlikely product.
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.
The evil queen gave Snow White a poisonous apple that sent her into a magical deep sleep, but in Tooele County, a mining company used run-off water polluted with heavy metals to grow their toxic orchards.
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.
Armed with a cameraman, a rubber boat named “Charlie,” and a pet racoon, Buzz Holmstrom took a legendary river trip that was featured in the 1938 film “Conquering the Colorado."
The Great Saltair Resort is often remembered for its glory days as a dance hall and amusement park. But it was constantly at war with the harsh, saline environment that gave it its claim to fame.
While today’s roads are paved, the dusty roads of the early 1900s caused major health and cleanliness concerns for Utah’s city dwellers.
Do you know about the mysterious food poisoning that gave Box Elder County’s Malad River its name?
The historic settlements underneath Willard Bay were submerged twice - first by years of dirt, dust, and debris and then again by a flooded reservoir.
As the population of the American West grew in the mid-twentieth century, so did the demand for water. Learn how the fight over a proposed dam in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument gave birth to the modern conservation movement.
If someone admits they’ve broken the law, the government is not supposed to take up their cause. Yet that is exactly what happened when a group of farmers in Heber Valley stole water from the Ute Reservation for decades.
Each summer, as the snowpack dwindles and drought restrictions come into play, most Utahns keep up a small oasis in the desert – their front lawns. Learn why more than half of Utah’s valuable household water is used outside to sprinkle this yield-less crop.
Laundry Day. Hate it or love it, it is easier to do now than it ever has been. Learn how one Utah family washed their clothing before indoor plumbing.
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 thrive.
Living in the desert means dealing with extreme conditions. Sometimes that means drought, but other times the problem is too much water all at once. Learn how Utahns in Manti looked upstream to tackle the problem of flooding.
The outdoor recreation industry in Utah is worth billions of dollars. But getting out into nature for simple pleasure – and paying someone to guide you – is a relatively modern concept. Learn about a river trip taken in 1909 that forecast the growth of Utah’s river recreation economy.
You have probably walked over a buried creek many times and not realized it. Underneath the streets of Salt Lake Valley are seven creeks flowing from the Wasatch Mountains. What are the costs of hiding this water?
Making use of the Sevier River for agriculture required some ingenuity after early Mormon settlers discovered that irrigation was more complicated than simply digging a ditch. Learn how an unconventional surveying tool nicknamed “Old Scraggen” came to their rescue.
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.
Timp Glacier, on the east face of Mt Timpanogos, isn’t really a glacier. But the distinction hardly mattered to thousands of skiers who were anxious for the unique chance to hit the slopes in July.
Great Salt Lake is the natural wonder that gave Utah’s capital city its name. Yet, it is cut in half, deprived of water, and shrinking before our very eyes. Learn about the water story of our beloved Great Salt Lake – and the warning it presents.