Thomas G. Alexander Utah, The Right Place Utah suffered the stagflation (inflation and economic stagnation) and succeeding recession that began in 1979 during the Carter administration, which left the state with a rising unemployment rate that reached 9.2 percent in 1983. The Reagan reelection campaign undoubtedly benefited from the decline in unemployment to 6.5 percent in 1984. Thereafter, Utah’s unemployment …
Utah’s First State Park
Allan Kent Powell History Blazer, November 1996 Wasatch Mountain State Park, located along the eastern slope of the Wasatch Mountains, became a reality a century after the settlement of Heber City and Midway in 1859. The alpine Heber Valley was characterized by plenty of water, good pasture and farm land, and, compared to many settlements founded at the same time, …
“Alphabet” Agencies in Utah County
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel History of Utah County When Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the first of his New Deal programs, the Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933 (FERA), was approved on 12 May. Although the act extended federal participation in relief for two more years, it changed the nature of the funding from loans to direct grants to the …
Southern Utah’s Boom and Bust Uranium Industry
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 …
Central Utah Project
Craig Fuller Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Water has always been a precious resource in the Intermountain West. Junius F. Wells wrote in 1889 that “water is just now agitating all people in this region, and it is also receiving attention in other quarters.” Millions of people could be comfortably located in the arid West, he added, “through the storage and …
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 …
Jack Dempsey Loved Fighting, Mining and Cowboying
Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, March 1995 During the 1920s Americans celebrated their material prosperity and made national heroes out of sports figures. The greatest American sports hero was undoubtedly Babe Ruth; his closest rival was a tough heavyweight boxer from the mining West called Jack Dempsey. Dempsey’s family originally came from Logan County, West Virginia. Jack claimed that his …
Utah’s Immigrants at the Turn of the Century
Thomas G. Alexander Utah, the Right Place Condensed by Brittany Nelson As Utahns struggled to make industrial and urban life more humane, the composition of its population changed rapidly. Although people of British ancestry remained the majority in the state, each train that pulled into the railroad stations of Utah’s major cities and mining centers seemed like a caricature of …
Life Was Precarious in Turn-of-the-Century Utah
Becky Bartholomew History Blazer, August 1996 The autobiography of Florence Thompson reveals how precarious life could be for citizens of rural Utah at the turn of the century. Florence was born in 1891 near Lawrence, a tiny community a few miles north of Castle Dale, Emery County. Her first brush with death came at age seven when she contracted typhoid …
Electrifying Utah—Engineer Lucien L. Nunn
History Blazer, May 1996 In the early 1900s an engineer and contractor by the name of Lucien L. Nunn was a major figure in bringing electric power to the Intermountain West. He is best remembered for the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado, and the Olmsted hydroelectric plant in Provo Canyon, Utah. But he also entrepreneured many smaller plants, some …