Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows sat on my shelf for about 20 years before I picked it up last fall. I was halfway through the book when Bagley passed away in October. It was a strange shock to know that this wise and curmudgeonly historian’s voice I had been hearing in my head would now reside only in those black … [Read more...]
Pete Marshall Recounts Plum Alley and The Chinese Tong and Mafia in Salt Lake
Downtown Salt Lake City’s Main Street is probably best known as the home of Temple Square, where millions of lights (usually, but not this year) shine around the reflecting pond that rests just outside of the 130-year-old Mormon temple. Downtown is the place where pious Latter-Day Saints worship and do billions of dollars of business, from banking, to insurance, to books, … [Read more...]
The Story of Snowbird Ski Resort
Ted Johnson and Dick Bass built a recreation legacy. Snowbird’s millionaire oil tycoon and financier Dick Bass was an outdoor icon. Bass jet-setted the world’s highest peaks, summiting seven of them in his fifties. Bass not only set world records, he also started a trend that other aging, adventurous multi-millionaires would follow. John Krakauer’s famous Everest expedition … [Read more...]
The Main Street Divide: Remembering Main Street Salt Lake City of Christmas Past
Downtown Salt Lake City’s Main Street has always had two very distinct halves: The North half is almost all LDS-Church-owned and now the billion-dollar City Creek Center has almost every fashionable Wall Street traded chain store one could hope for (Tiffany's, Louis Vuitton, Coach). With over five million annual visitors to Salt Lake City’s Temple each year, now we can host … [Read more...]
Honoring the 2,945 Fallen Utah Veterans with West Valley City Veterans Memorial
On November 11, 2021, Veterans Day, the city of West Valley unveiled something quite extraordinary. A brand-new tribute, a memorial to the 2,945 fallen Utah veterans. The Utah Veterans Memorial was the passion project of West Valley city mayor Ron Bigelow who has worked for many years to see this project come to life. Much time was donated by everyone involved, … [Read more...]
100-Year-Old Wasatch Mountain Lodge Hidden in Dense Forest of Big Cottonwood Canyon
If you’ve ever skied Brighton Resort, chances are you’ve glided right past the two-story, almost 100-year-old Wasatch Mountain Lodge without even knowing it. Located on the hillside above Brighton Inn, just a few hundred yards from the Milly Express lift, this large, log structure is hidden in dense forest. “I first became acquainted with the Lodge three years ago. It was … [Read more...]
Discover and Visit Utah’s Natural History Wonders in All of Its 29 Counties
Utah’s natural history isn’t just in a museum. As the Natural History Museum of Utah approached its 50th anniversary, staff began brainstorming ways to commemorate the occasion. The result was the newly launched Explorer Corps program. In all 29 counties throughout the Beehive State, the NHMU has identified and marked a point of natural or cultural … [Read more...]
X96 Radio From Hell Show: Still Hell After All These Years
Radio From Hell on X-96 continues to find success in "Sticking it to the Man." Outposts of 1980s counterculture in the Salt Lake Valley like Cosmic Aeroplane Records, Bandaloops Café, The Speedway Café, and dance clubs like the Palladium and Ritz, have all disappeared over the decades like so much clove cigarette smoke. But, while the places are gone and the patrons … [Read more...]
A Brief History of the Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake was born Lake Bonneville ― the massive inland sea that covered the entire area that is now the Salt Lake Valley, Provo/Orem Valley, and well north of Ogden. The sea extended as far North as Idaho and South to Nevada. It was 150 miles from east to west and 250 miles from north to south. Its shores extended high on the east “benches” and its waves lapped … [Read more...]
Utes Used Psychedelics in Shamanic Rituals, but What Did They Eat?
A year ago on the Utah Stories podcast, we examined the practices of Native Americans in shamanic rituals, including their usage of psychedelics to conduct “vision quests” to better understand their purpose in life. We spoke to Dr. Reid Robison, who described their usage of DMT, peyote, and mushrooms in detail and how those practices are being emulated today to treat everything … [Read more...]