Robert McPherson Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 The Colorado River is one of the most important water systems in the United States. Draining watersheds from seven western states, it is divided into two major districts, the Upper Basin comprised of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin formed by Nevada, Arizona, and California. With its headwaters in Wyoming …
Great Salt Lake
Richard H. Jackson Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 The Great Salt Lake is both the largest body of water between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean and the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere. The Great Salt Lake is the major remnant of Lake Bonneville, a large freshwater lake of the Pleistocene era (75,000–7,250 B.C.) that occupied much of …
The Peoples of Utah, Navajos
The Peoples of Utah, ed. by Helen Z. Papanikolas, © 1976 “The Navajos,” pp. 13–27 by Clyde J. Benally In beauty (happily) I walk. With beauty before me I walk. With beauty behind me I walk. With beauty below me I walk. With beauty above me I walk. It is finished (again) in beauty. It is finished in beauty. –Night Chant …
Black Hawk War
John A. Peterson Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 The Black Hawk Indian War was the longest and most destructive conflict between pioneer immigrants and Native Americans in Utah History. The traditional date of the war’s commencement is 9 April 1865 but tensions had been mounting for years. On that date bad feelings were transformed into violence when a handful of Utes …
The Walker War
Thomas G. Alexander Utah, The Right Place Although the Paiutes worked out an accommodation of sorts with the Mormon immigrants, the settlers’ occupation of lands that the Utes used for hunting and gathering, along with Mormon attempts to suppress the New Mexican trade, disrupted the Ute economy and society. With such highly combustible tinder laid, a seemingly isolated spark set …
The Ute Trek to South Dakota in 1906 Ended in Disappointment
Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, June 1995 The May 26, 1906, Vernal Express spread the alarm: “Many of the residents of Uintah county may not be aware of the fact, but it is nevertheless true, that Indian trouble of gigantic proportion is brewing . . . .” A band of White River Utes from the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, numbering …
Utah’s First People: The Utes, Paiutes, and Goshutes
Peoples of Utah Floyd A. O’Neil The Utes ….. teach ’em to speak Ute. And don’t let them ever forget how we’re supposed to live, who we are, where we came from.”–Connor Chapoose Confined on reservations, no longer free to range over the mountains and deserts of their lands in the incessant quest for food, the hard-pressed Utes never completely …
Slavery in Utah
Jeffrey D. Nichols History Blazer, April 1995 Although the practice was never widespread, some Utah pioneers held African-American slaves until 1862 when Congress abolished slavery in the territories. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with the first pioneer company in 1847, and their names appear on a plaque on the Brigham Young Monument in downtown …
Settlement and Exploration
Thomas G. Alexander Utah, The Right Place Some judgments can be made on the valley from Fremont’s descriptions, from the experience of the Mormon pioneers, and from later explorations such as those by Howard Stansbury and John Wesley Powell. The deposits dropped by Lake Bonneville and by mountain streams provided fertile soil for Euro-mountain streams provided fertile soil for Euro-American …
The Rocky Mountain Sweepstakes in 1843
Yvette D. Ison History Blazer, May 1995 During the summer of 1843, Mountain Men, Native Americans, and fur traders throughout the region spread the word about an exciting event to take place in August. Sir William Drummond Stewart, an English nobleman, was sponsoring a horse race that would pit his Missouri horses against those of the American West. The race, …