Why are public lands such a big deal in Utah? Because over 66% of the state is part of a vast federally owned public domain.
Economic Immigrant Communities’ Impact on Salt Lake City
Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Twenty-OneBy Brad Westwood The arrival of later economic immigrants, from across the United States and around the globe, to Utah and the Pioneer Park neighborhood, created conflicts with the Mormon Church’s (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons) all-encompassing societal ideal. This post was updated in February 2023. Salt …
Pioneer Park Neighborhood: The Wellspring of Modern Salt Lake City
Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Eighteenby Brad Westwood In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as one of the world’s largest economic engines. It was railroading, mining and industry that attracted thousands of economic emigrants to Utah, that allowed Utah to be part of this larger economic story. The United States’ emergence as an industry …
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Pioneer Park Neighborhood Developments
Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Seventeenby Brad Westwood In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Federal-Aid Highway Act. This Act allowed for the construction of an interstate highway system with the main purpose of defending the nation from foreign attack. In Utah, representatives from the state legislature called upon eminent domain – the condemning and purchasing …
Discovering Human Remains at Mountain Meadows: a Conversation with Historical Archeologist Everett Bassett
08.24.2020 (Season 2: Episode 1) Click here for the BuzzSprout part one of this episode. Click here for the BuzzSprout part two of this episode. Visit the mentioned BuzzSprout links to access this episodes transcript. The above 19th c. lithograph tells graphically the once prevailing, and deeply disturbing and deceitful historical narrative, that Native Americans primarily perpetrated the Mountain Meadows …
The Books Must Go Out
Utah’s state library shipped books for the blind all over the country during the pandemic By Ellen Fagg Weist | Photography by Todd Anderson On the phone, Ruth Levi, a 97-year-old reader from Chicago, admitted she was a little bit desperate. In the middle of the pandemic, the Midwestern warehouse of the National Library Services for the Blind and Print …
‘We Are Not A Trend’: Utah Artists on Racial Equity
Masked protesters, proclaiming Black Lives Matter, became one of the dramatic images of summer 2020 across the country and also in Utah streets. After the COVID-19 shutdown paused the state’s art performances and closed museums, MUSE magazine sponsored a cultural conversation with artists discussing systemic racism. The panel, hosted by Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal, featured actor and singer Dee-Dee …
Pandemic Bread
It’s all about the dough for two Utah potters during quarantine By Ellen Fagg Weist In hindsight, two Utah potters seemed particularly well-positioned to take advantage of the quarantine bread-baking trend. During the pandemic, Joe Bennion, who owns Spring City’s Horseshoe Mountain Pottery, has regularly sold out of his stock of sturdy bread baker pots. In July, one batch of …
New web archive showcases the state’s literary landscape
By Ellen Fagg Weist | Illustration by Kerry Shaw On just about every school visit, Paisley Rekdal, Utah’s poet laureate, meets a few students who have literary ambitions they haven’t even acknowledged to themselves. For young writers, it’s easy to think you have to graduate from a prestigious college to become a published author. It’s easy to consider your home …
Current Challenges and Developments in a Post-Industrial Neighborhood: Part One
Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Thirty-Threeby Brad Westwood Since the mid-1990s, the Pioneer Park neighborhood has gradually redefined its identity from that of an industrial, transient, and impoverished area, to a more permanent and economically stable area. Like all change, the neighborhood has both gained and lost much in this process. Change is a constant in the Pioneer Park …
Immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Salt Lake City’s West Side
Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Twenty-Six By Brad Westwood During the second industrial revolution (1865-1920), the United States absorbed a large population of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. These new immigrants joined other immigrant groups already working in Utah’s expanding mining, industrial, and transportation sectors. Most of Utah’s Italian immigrants arrived in Utah after the 1890s. The majority of …