With its reinvigorated downtown and close proximity to mountains and river pathways, this northern Utah city is enjoying a renaissance. Ogden’s stock of affordable housing — compared to other metros along the Wasatch Front — currently draws people in for a closer look. 

On an ordinary October morning in 1985, downtown Salt Lake City was shattered by a blast that killed businessman and document collector Steve Christensen. Hours later, a second bomb tore through a quiet Holladay neighborhood, killing Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christensen’s former business partner. The next day saw a third explosion. This one was in a car near Temple Square that nearly killed rare-documents dealer Mark Hofmann. 

Rumors swirled instantly, tying the attacks to money, religion, and shadowy early-Mormon documents Christensen had recently acquired. For days, Utah held its breath. What unfolded was stranger and darker than fiction. The bombs weren’t the work of religious extremists or enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but instead, the doings of Mark Hofmann himself. Hofmann was a nerdy, soft-spoken dealer who had secretly become one of the most skilled document forgers in American history. 

His creations were so convincing that they reshaped historical narratives, fooling scholars, collectors, and church leaders. When the lies began to close in, the bombs became his final, desperate attempt to keep his world from collapsing.

Hofmann had been fabricating Mormon and American historical documents for years. He was a prodigy of deception, sourcing period paper, mixing inks that cracked just right, and mimicking handwriting with obsessive precision. Most of all, he knew how to read people. Utah in the 1970s and ’80s was a collector’s paradise. As bookseller Ken Sanders told Salt Lake Magazine, it was “a consciousness shift,” a recognition that rare Utah history was a treasure worth pursuing. It was also, he notes, fertile ground for affinity fraud.

Nothing captured that vulnerability more than the Salamander Letter, a supposed 1830s correspondence which claimed Joseph Smith encountered a magical white salamander rather than an angel. The document shook Latter-day Saint circles. Church leaders, worried about its implications, quietly purchased it along with other materials Hofmann dangled before them. Many reasoned that if the church was willing to buy it, then it must be authentic and true, and Hofmann understood that psychology perfectly.

When Kevin O’Leary appeared on Fox Business and casually announced that Utah would soon become home to what could be the largest AI data center project in the world, many Utahns had the same reaction:

Wait… this was already approved?

Utah leaders have spent years talking about affordable housing.

Governor Spencer Cox has repeatedly emphasized the need for more attainable housing, with a goal of creating tens of thousands of starter homes priced below $300,000. Yet despite broad agreement that housing affordability remains one of the state’s biggest challenges, one proposal designed specifically to encourage the construction of smaller, more affordable single-family homes failed to advance during the most recent legislative session.

The question raises an uncomfortable issue: if Utah agrees there is a shortage of starter homes, why are those homes still so difficult to build?

According to attorney and real estate professional Asha Klarich, much of the debate comes down to how communities want to grow and who gets to make those decisions.

House Bill 184, known as the Small Lots and Starter Homes Amendment, was intended to reduce regulatory barriers and allow smaller homes to be built on smaller lots. The proposal would have created a process for builders and homeowners to seek exceptions to local zoning requirements and construct homes on lots as small as roughly 5,400 square feet.

The idea was straightforward. Smaller lots generally mean lower land costs. Lower land costs can translate into lower home prices.

For many first-time buyers, that sounds far more appealing than another apartment building or densely packed townhome development.

“I think most people would prefer a smaller home on a smaller lot than apartment-style living in a high-rise,” Klarich said during a recent discussion about housing legislation.

The bill ultimately failed.