Prominently located a mere 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, Hill Air Force Base has become a remarkable feature of Utah’s landscape. Even before its gates opened in 1940, its construction as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project provided…

Thistle got its start as a railroad resupply town. In fact, most of the early settlers were there on assignment from railroad companies to provide some rudimentary services to help out trains as they passed through town. Mormon settlers also made up…

Adjacent to the Manzanar Relocation Center is the site of a colonial military project in the valley called Fort Independence. The creation of the fort in 1862 focused on quelling violent skirmishes between Numu (Owens Valley Paiute) and ranchers and…

The Moulin Rouge was opened in 1955 amidst a civil rights battle in Las Vegas. The city’s black residents insisted that Las Vegas officials pass a civil rights ordinance which would allow African Americans to dine, gamble, and stay at Strip hotels.…

For nearly a decade prior to the army’s arrival in 1857, the Mormons had lived relatively isolated and undisturbed by outside influences. Of early concern to church leaders, Fairfield, a satellite town of Camp Floyd, was viewed as bringing moral…

Echo is located at the mouth of the steep sided Echo Canyon,, the bottleneck that directed overland travelers toward the Ogden and Salt Lake valleys. While the Donner Party was the first major American overland group since the mountain men to pass…

The broad narratives of American involvement in World War II include often feature the United States as the hero of the Allied powers, men old and young fighting in Pacific and European theaters of war, and the American home-front experiencing an…