Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, December 1996 The history of much of the American West has been marked by boom and bust cycles. Perhaps the most famous example is the California gold rush, which brought tens of thousands of Forty-Niners to the Golden State, a tiny fraction of whom ever struck it rich. Southeastern Utah has experienced a number of …
Utah and Vietnam Conflict
Allan Kent Powell Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 During the 1960s and 1970s, Utah was affected by the Vietnam Conflict in many ways. Utahns served in all branches of the armed forces; many were decorated for valor in combat, were held prisoner in North Vietnam, or came home without limbs and with other permanent injuries. At home, Utahns both supported and …
McCarthyism, Granger, and Stringfellow
Janet Burton Seegmiller Utah Historical Quarterly 67 Fall During the 1950 campaign, fallout from McCarthyism and strident anti-Communism began to take its toll on Utah’s Democratic candidates. Subtle advertisements placed the Democrats and the American Communist Party on the same side of some issues, making it appear as though candidates Elbert Thomas, Reva Beck Bosone, and Walter Granger were Communist …
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950 Visit to SLC
Allen Kent Powell History Blazer, February 1995 Historians date the beginning of the McCarthy era as February 9, 1950, when Senator Joseph R. McCarthy gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, as part of a Lincoln Day weekend celebration. In that speech the junior senator from Wisconsin claimed to have a list of State Department employees who were members of …
From the Atomic Age to War Games
Ouida Blanthorn History of Tooele County When word reached the nations of the world on 6 August 1945 that the 509th Composite Group had dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, most of the personnel of Wendover Army Air Base were just as surprised as anyone, even though the 509th had trained at Wendover, Utah, in Tooele County and …
“Police Action” in Korea
Janet Burton Seegmiller History of Iron County In August 1949 Russia exploded its first nuclear device, launching the nuclear arms race. Ten months later, war broke out between North Korea and South Korea. President Harry S. Truman established the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and answered the Russian challenge with plans to build an enlarged atomic-weapons arsenal, which required intensive and …
Nuclear Testing and the Downwinders
Janet Burton Seegmiller The History of Iron County War in Asia caused the United States to reconsider testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean and to look for a continental test site. Conflict in Korea justified a less-expensive continental testing site in order to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons superiority. A Nevada site north of Las Vegas was chosen because of …
Radiation Death and Deception
Thomas G. Alexander Utah, The Right Place The fallout from this paranoiac witch-hunting rained deadly radioactive poison on the people of southwestern Utah as public officials prized a perverted interpretation of national security far above the lives of loyal and innocent people. Following World War II, the United States exploded atomic weapons at the Pacific islands of Bikini and Eniwetok; …
Utah’s Uranium Boom
Raye C. Ringholz Beehive History 16 It was the winter of 1949 in Houston, Texas. Charles Augustus Steen was twenty-eight years old. Fired as a geologist by the Standard Oil Company of Indiana for “rebellion against authority” and blacklisted throughout the petroleum industry, he was working as a carpenter to support a pregnant wife and three toddlers. But all the …
Uranium Mining in Utah
Raye C. Ringholz Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Uranium, a radioactive element, was first mined in the western United States in 1871 by Dr. Richard Pierce, who shipped 200 pounds of pitchblende to London from the Central City Mining District near Denver, Colorado. The ore was researched for fabrication of steel alloys, chemical experimentation and as pigments for dyes, inks and …
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