Jami Balls On February 28, 1850, the General Assembly of the provisional state of Deseret declared their intention to establish a university and appointed members to a Board of Regents to select a site. They chose an area of about 560 acres on the bench east of the city, including what is now the main campus, a portion of Federal …
History of Fort Douglas
Jami Balls With the onset of the Civil War, President Lincoln called all regular troops from frontier duty to fight against the South, leaving the Overland Mail Route vulnerable to Indian attacks. Accordingly, he appointed Colonel Patrick E. Connor to the Third California Volunteer Infantry and directed him to establish a post near Salt Lake City in order to protect …
History of Provo
Jami Balls Provo City is situated in Utah Valley, an area just south of Salt Lake City that traditionally was home to part of the Ute Indian tribe. The Utes settled in villages close to Utah Lake both for protection from northeastern tribes and to attain fish, their primary food source. Fathers Escalante and Dominguez, the non-American Indians men to …
History of Snow Basin
Jami Balls Following the slowing of World War I and the Great Depression, the 1930s experienced a phenomenal growth in skiing interest. Small resorts sprung up throughout Utah’s snow-packed mountains with the installation of primitive tows. This encouraged Weber County to develop the area of Wheeler Basin into a ski resort. Some badly deteriorated watershed lands were restored and the …
History of Ogden (Ice Sheet)
Jami Balls In 1845 trapper Miles Goodyear established the first permanent settlement in Utah. He built the small fenced structure of Fort Buenaventura near the confluence of the Ogden and Weber Rivers and claimed the land approximating the Weber County borders. In 1847, Brigham Young sent the families of James Brown and Lorin Farr to purchase this settlement just north …
History of Deer Valley
Jami Balls In February of 1936, the Salt Lake Junior Chamber of Commerce held “Park City’s first winter carnival” on a north-facing hillside at the head of Deer Valley. The Denver and Rio Grande sent a “snow train” up to Park City with more than 500 visitors to join in the festivities of the day. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) …
History of Park City
Jami Balls The first discoveries of precious metals in the mountains around Salt Lake City appeared in the early 1860s. Colonel Patrick E. Connor of Fort Douglas instigated the search, encouraging his men to prospect with the purpose of bringing non-Mormons into the Utah Territory. The first recorded claim of the Park City Mining District was the Young American lode …
Golden Spike National Historic Site
Deborah Blake Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 On 10 May 1869 from Promontory Summit northwest of Ogden, Utah, a single telegraphed word, “done,” signaled to the nation the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Railroad crews of the Union Pacific, 8,000 to 10,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, had pushed west from Omaha, Nebraska. At Promontory they met crews of the …
It Could Be Called Utah’s Fort Knox
Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, March 1995 As one of the West’s great mining states, Utah became known for its silver, copper, and gold production. Bingham Canyon, Park City, Silver Reef, and Mercur are just a few of the historic mining areas, but the Great Salt Lake holds a huge cache of minerals estimated in 1981 to be worth $90 …