Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, July 1996 Wherever African Americans gathered in sufficient number they soon organized a church. That was true throughout the West, including Utah. Although blacks first settled permanently in Salt Lake City in July 1847, a black community did not really evolve until the 1890s when the territory’s African American population reached 533, a majority of …
Hotel Served Basques and African Americans
ROYAL HOTEL SERVED BASQUES AND AFRICAN AMERICANS Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, October 1996 Built in 1914 at 2522 Wall Avenue, Ogden, the Royal Hotel has filled a unique role in the city’s history. A modest three-story masonry building, the hotel originally provided housing for blue collar railroad workers and travelers. Shops, cafes, and offices filled the front spaces of …
Hispanic Folk Practices
HISPANIC FOLK PRACTICES IN UTAH INCLUDE THE HEALING ARTS Miriam Murphy History Blazer, February 1995 Alternative medicine is widely recognized and talked about in Utah and throughout the United States. Discussed in popular magazines and on television, it is more than a late twentieth-century fad, however. Its roots run deep, and its practice encompasses many aspects neglected by the mass …
Early Greek Immigrants
Helen Zeese Papanikolas Utah Historical Quarterly V. 22 #2 The Greek immigrant was the last of the Europeans to come to America. Fewer than two thousand Greeks were in the entire country before the 1880s. The first arrivals were young boys bought by American naval officers and philanthropists on the Turkish slave block. They were sent to the United States …
Greek Sheepmen
GREEK SHEEPMEN BROUGHT OLD-COUNTRY WAYS TO UTAH Helen Z. Papanikolas History Blazer, September 1995 At the beginning of this century, many men and boys from Greece found work in Utah mines and on railroad gangs. They had come from a pastoral people who spent the greater part of the year driving sheep and goats to mountains for summer pasture and …
The Greek Midwife Magerou
Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, February 1996 She was the matriarch of the first Greek immigrant families to settle in Midvale, Bingham, and Magna. Most of the men worked in the copper mine and the smelters. Georgia Lathouris Mageras—called Magerou after her marriage—was the midwife who delivered their offspring and provided many other medical services to the community. She was …
Scandinavian Life in Utah
SCANDINAVIAN LIFE IN UTAH INCLUDED A UNIQUE SENSE OF HUMOR Kent Powell History Blazer, October 1995 During the last half of the nineteenth century Sanpete County became home to hundreds of Mormon converts from the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Aspects of this heritage remain in the buildings, traditions, foods, stories, and humor that were essential elements of …
South Slav Community in Midvale
MIDVALE WAS HOME TO A VIBRANT SOUTH SLAV COMMUNITY Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, August 1995 As early as 1890 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes began arriving in the Midvale-Murray area seeking work in the smelters. Many of them came to stay after the turn of the century, in part because of poor agricultural conditions in the Old Country and labor …
The Fall of Skliris, “Czar of the Greeks”
THE FALL OF LEONIDAS SKLIRIS, “CZAR OF THE GREEKS” Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, December 1996 The lure of jobs in the American West drew thousands of immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many came from Greece, convinced by the promises of Leonidas G. Skliris, a Salt Lake City-based labor agent who became known as “the Czar of …
Beobachter Helped German Immigrants
DER BEOBACHTER HELPED GERMAN IMMIGRANTS ACCULTURATE IN UTAH Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, March 1995 German Americans have long constituted one of the largest ethnic populations in the United States. Immigrants from the various German states flooded into America, especially during the 1830s-1850s. Substantial numbers stayed in eastern cities, while others went to the Midwest to farm or trade, creating …