Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1876, Gertrude Simmons or Zitkala-Ša left the reservation at age eight to attend White’s Manual Labor Institute in Indiana. This assimilation-focused boarding school instilled Euro-American and Christian values in its students. She attended Earlham College and became an increasingly skilled writer and musician. She taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. After a while, she became critical of the emphasis on assimilation and acculturation and resigned. She began writing under the name Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird) around 1889, publishing essays in national magazines such as Harper’s Monthly. Her writings often criticized the practice of many reformers and stressed the importance of Native identities. Zitkala-Ša married Raymond Bonnin in 1902 and they moved to Whiterocks, Utah, where Raymond worked for the Indian Bureau on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. In 1903, they had a son, Raymond “Ohiya” Bonnin. A young, orphaned Ute boy named Oran Curry and Old Sioux, a survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also lived with them.  The Bonnins lived in Utah from 1902 to 1917, except for several months spent on the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas. It was while away at Standing Rock that she converted to Catholicism. After returning to Utah, she kept up a correspondence with Father William Ketcham, director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, expressing her wish to introduce Catholicism to the Utes. In 1908, she met music teacher William Hanson. They eventually collaborated in writing and composing the Sun Dance Opera, which debuted in Vernal, Utah, in 1913. The Sun Dance is a religious ceremony practiced by some Natives, especially Plains Peoples. The opera combined Native rituals with European-styled performances. It is unclear what motivated her to collaborate on this opera, which could be viewed as a violation of religious respect. Interestingly, the Sun Dance was outlawed on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation at this time, and the opera allowed Ute performers to participate in it to some degree. At the time of its debut, a Vernal newspaper praised it as greatly pleasing the audience. During her first few years in Utah, Zitkala-Ša taught at the Whiterocks Boarding School. She also spent time working for the Indian Service. In 1913, she joined the Society of American Indians, a national organization advocating for Native rights. She was elected secretary of the SAI in 1916. After moving to Duchesne, Utah, in 1915, she created a Ute community center. While in Utah, she began an anti-peyote campaign. Zitkala-Ša and her husband Ray moved to Washington, D.C., where she continued her activism. Zitkala-Ša’s time in Utah was one of “relative obscurity." Yet, during her fourteen years there, she continued to evolve and to advance the causes she believed in.

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The Union Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary, the Utah Parks Company, completed a railway line near Cedar City in 1923, granting visitors of Zion National Park an easy and convenient method of travel from the railway station to the park by motorbus. The Union Pacific also collaborated with the Park Service to build hotels along its routes to attract customers for each company, resulting in the construction of Zion Lodge, an in-park hotel where guests could stay during their travels. Stephen Mather, director of the National Park Service, initially balked at Union Pacific’s desired size for the lodge and requested something smaller. In the end, each side compromised to build a medium-sized lodge that blended into its natural surroundings inside the heart of the canyon.  Gilbert Stanley Underwood, an American architect who studied at Yale and Harvard, worked with the Utah Parks Company to design the structure, and construction began in 1923. Underwood envisioned the lodge as a warm and inviting atmosphere for guests. The building incorporated 265,000 board feet of lumber from the Colorado Plateau brought down by the Cable Mountain Draw Works, a mechanism of wires and pulleys extending from the top of the canyon to an area 2,000 feet below. Construction teams finished the lodge in May 1925, and the park held a small dedication ceremony on the front lawn. The later addition of individual cabins to the lodging accommodations in Zion signaled a milestone in park success and development. The original lodge featured natural wood design, locally sourced stone for the entrance columns, and a green roof that harmonized the building with its surrounding canyon and forest environment. The original structure served visitors and staff for over forty years until it was lost to a fire on January 26, 1966. But in only 108 days, crews constructed a new building to replace the original lodge. The new lodge continues to offer a variety of accommodations. In addition to being the only place inside Zion that serves food, at the lodge visitors can also attend or embark on ranger-led activities such as patio talks, guided hikes, shuttle bus tours, and outdoor evening programs. To access the lodge, visitors who are staying overnight must present a permit that allows car access up the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. Otherwise, catching a ride on the shuttle takes visitors to the lodge and nearby trailheads. The park’s swift move to replace Zion Lodge after the fire and maintain accommodations shows the Service’s commitment to visitors and the importance of the lodge to Zion National Park.

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By the early 1900s, the scenic qualities of the two-thousand-foot Navajo Sandstone cliffs in Zion Canyon had been recognized as a potential destination for tourism. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order designating Mukuntuweap (Zion) National Monument in Zion Canyon. However, accessing the monument was difficult due to poor road conditions and no railway connection. In 1917, the Utah State Road Commission constructed a new highway which allowed motorists to reach the first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon, Wiley Camp. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional bill changing the name of the monument to Zion and designating it a National Park. In the 1930s, the newly completed Zion Mount Carmel highway allowed motorists access to travel through Zion to Bryce Canyon. The highway was one of the greatest engineering feats of its time and included a 1.1-mile tunnel through the vertical sandstone cliffs.

Staff at Zion National Park had been proposing a new information point in the late 1940s before the start of the Mission 66 program which funded the Park Service to establish new modern visitor centers that could accommodate new visitor demands after World War II. By the time President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill to fund the project, Zion Park Staff were no longer discussing whether a new hub was needed, but where it would be located. Controversy over where to locate the new building continued for a year as Park Service Director Conrad Wirth wanted to place it across the road from the museum located near the entrance of the park, but Zion Superintendent Paul Franke argued the main reason for a new setting was due to traffic and overcrowding on the main entry roadway. He argued that the new visitor center needed to be in an area that could accommodate the high volumes of park traffic without causing interference with the main road. The new location placed it outside of the canyon where natural beauty and scenic attractions could be incorporated into the design of the building.

Park Service designer Cecil Doty presented preliminary designs for the tourist point in 1957. During the next year, Doty's designs for the Zion Visitor Center were handed over to the architectural firm of Cannon and Mullen of Salt Lake City. Construction began in April 1959 but in October a steel strike delayed the modern steel framework in the lobby, and the architects were forced to change their material to aluminum in order to open on time. Cannon and Mullen completed construction in June 1960 and opened to the public that same month. The Park Service dedicated the Zion Visitor Center on June 17, 1961, a year after it had been open to the public. The construction features a large auditorium, exhibit room, lobby for visitors, and an office wing for the park employees. Designs in the lobby featured big glass windows that enabled visitors to view the surrounding canyons and encouraged them to walk outside onto the balcony to get a view of the beautiful mountain range. To blend the modern style of the center with its surrounding environment, the architects incorporated red stone veneers around the bathrooms and the top of the building. The Zion Visitor Center has been renovated and reopened as the Zion Human History Museum.

Since then, the Zion Visitor Center has been renovated and reopened as the Zion Human History Museum. The museum features permanent exhibits about people who once dwelled in what is now Zion National Park, including southern Paiutes and nineteenth-century pioneers, and about how the area became a national park. Temporary exhibits also offer a range of historic information about the park and its lands and people.

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Zay Philbrook had limited capital but a limitless love for the “glorious heart of Wyoming.” After boarding with a ranger and his family the summer of 1914, Zay was so smitten with her time in the Big Horn mountains that she wanted to stay. With her sister, she rented a small cabin near the town Ten Sleep and searched for land to homestead that suited her means and capabilities. Zay was realistic in her approach to settlement, considering costs of improvements and the physical demands of their completion. The restraints on her funds and time led her to consider a “Timber and Stone” claim. Such claims ranged from 40-160 acres and cost the appraised value of the land and its natural timber or stone. There were no requirements for improvements or time spent occupying the property, so Zay could purchase the patent outright.

With the help of a ranger, Zay discovered a “quiet, happy little valley fenced by red rimrock and timbered buttes, opening to the south to give a view of the Big Horn basin.” At the head of the valley were several springs that emerged from the hillside, forming a stream that ran the length of the valley. Zay wrote that even with her excitement about the property and its future, she hesitated, asking herself, if once started, she could “see the thing through to the end.” She “looked up at the mountains... measured the responsibility,” and decided she could. Zay had found her claim and, in her words, “All the rest was gladness.”

A surveyor came out to inspect the property and establish the claim. Zay, like other “timber and stone” claim holders, had to wait nine months before her patent was officially approved. At that time, she made the necessary payments which totaled $520.70 and included surveying, water and timber rights, the property, and all other fees. She paid an old trapper to build her simple one room cabin and made her own closet, shelves, table, and benches. The single room served many purposes and could be adapted to suit a single woman or a half dozen visitors passing through. Zay described it as such a “cosy, warm little room that one forgets winter is drifting down over long miles of mountainside.”

Economy was considered in all of Zay’s proceedings. She explained her thrift, saying, “Few of us lovers of the West can afford to start such a place just for the pleasure there is in it; we must look for some return for our time and money.” Improvements were viewed as an investment. The property, if necessitated, could be sold for a dude ranch or lambing ground, but Zay’s intentions were to establish a self-supporting ranch. She bought as many horses as she could afford, mainly yearlings. The homestead had only 5-6 irrigable acres and these were cleared of sage brush for a small hay pasture, a vegetable garden, and hardy fruit trees. Vegetables lasted into November and late spring frosts were more of a risk than early fall ones.

Homestead life was often marked by labor, loneliness, and difficulty, but it was also fulfilling and rewarding. Zay counseled prospective homesteaders to “expect some strenuous days,” but also to “know that every day brings fresh happiness, as you help the claim to grow, as the mountains become more friendly.”

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On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor bringing the United States into the Second World War. On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing all people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to relocate to internment camps. They took only what they could carry and left their homes in May 1942, having no idea where they were going or whether they would ever return. Yukio Shimomura was one of the victims of this order. Prior to arriving in Topaz, Utah, many of the Japanese Americans were held in the Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno, California, where they lived in washed-out horse stables lined with linoleum. Yukio Shimomura explained the experience: “All you had was one lightbulb…. Using scrap wood, many made nightstands and other shelves to hold their stuff. Beds were bags filled with hay, and if you couldn’t sleep on that, you slept on the floor… Lots of lines. Lines, lines, lines for everything. We were only there a short time, but it was traumatic… For those living in the horse stalls, they had it bad; they stunk when they came out… you could separate them from those living in the barracks [by their smell]… we were lucky.” Shimomura and his family stayed at Tanforan for a short time before being relocated to the Topaz Internment Camp near Delta, Utah. They remained there for three years behind barbed wire and armed guards.  In Topaz, the Japanese “internees” were separated into blocks and barracks. Each block had twelve barracks, a recreation hall, latrines for men and for women, and a mess hall. The barracks were sectioned into six apartments of different sizes to accommodate families of two, four, or more people. Larger families were given two or more rooms. The six rooms came in three sizes, 20’ by 14’, 20’, or 26’. Shimomura later explained that the walls separating the rooms did not reach the ceiling so that you could hear everything from everyone all the time. He remembered, “there were 300 children born in the camp, so you figure couples realized they had to do what they needed to do.” Privacy was absent in the camp, as there were no doors or stalls in any of the bathrooms or showers.  At the camp, many tried to make life as normal as possible. This included working at different jobs around the camp for roughly $14 to $19 a month, depending on the job. Children went to school, played around the camp, and all lent a helping hand in whatever needed to be done. No matter how hard they tried to make life as normal as possible, the internees understood they were not free. “Topaz was chaotic,” Shimomura summarized as he explained the death of an elderly man who did not understand the order given to turn around when approaching the barbed wire fence. After a third confusing warning, he was shot and killed. While this was the only shooting to occur at Topaz, it scarred all who were there.  In January 1943, President Roosevelt asked for volunteers at Topaz to serve in the United States Army. Shimomura remembers that all who were at the camp were given a questionnaire to determine their loyalty to the United States, with question 28 asking, “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor or any other foreign government, power or organization?” If the answer was yes, internees could leave the camp for military service. One hundred and five young men, including some young fathers, signed up to fight and were allowed to leave the camp for the first time. The loyalty of Japanese American soldiers who served in the war raised questions about the purposes of the internment camps. In 1943, many others gained sponsors and were allowed to leave the camp to attend universities or enter employment.

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“Dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Roosevelt Arch is a hearty welcome on the North entrance side of Yellowstone National Park. Standing at 52 feet, this monument is a symbol ofthe cultural and natural significance of the Park. Erected in 1903, the arch spanned what was at the time the park’s only entrance. Visitors passed under the arch from Gardiner, Montana, taking stagecoaches into Yellowstone. Army Co Engineer, Hiram M. Chittenden, the idea man, said, “...the natural features of the country at this portion of the boundary are about the least interesting of any part of the Park, and the first impression of visitors upon entering the Park was very unfavorable.” Accordingly, he proposed the arch as a beautiful park entry. Construction began on February 19, 1903 and a dedication ceremony was planned for April 24, 1903 to coincide with Roosevelt's planned visit to the park.

Yellowstone Park officials asked Roosevelt to participate in the event. This was a perfect opportunity for his conservation efforts and love for the park. With great fanfare, Roosevelt shared, “The geysers, the extraordinary hot springs, the lakes, the mountains, the canyons, and cataracts unite to make this region something not wholly to be paralleled elsewhere on the globe.” His love for the land was shared with the visitors there. They added a time capsule in the arch containing local newspapers, a bible, Masonic documents, a picture of President Roosevelt, and U.S. coins, among other items. Roosevelt Arch still stands as a ceremonial welcoming committee to Yellowstone. Although not as popular as it was in the 20th century because of changing traffic patterns, automobiles couldn’t take the route like stagecoaches had, it is still a valuable spot to visit when exploring the park. Multiple entrances being added make this an out-of-the-way stop for those accessing the park from the more popular southern and western entrances. Yellowstone is visited by approximately 4 million people annually, and the arch continues to be a popular destination, especially for those visiting the Mammoth area or arriving from points north. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and is a potent symbol and reminder that National parks are “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people” as Theodore Roosevelt referenced the Act Congress passed in 1872 making Yellowstone a public park in his speech, and is not engraved on a place at the top of the arch itself.

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Congress established Yellowstone in 1872 as the country’s first and largest national park. Soon after, potential concessionaires flocked to build visitor services within park boundaries. In choosing leaseholders, early administrators strove to balance conservation and tourist accessibility. Increased transportation options would bring more people to the area, companies argued, and encourage the government to allocate funds to protect Yellowstone from vandalism and poaching. In 1886, following a decade of haphazard operations, the Yellowstone Park Association (YPA) took advantage of the park’s rise in popularity. The Northern Pacific Railroad-financed company took over property leases from the previous bankrupt concessionaire. The sites spanned across the park, including one at Yellowstone Lake. E.C. Waters began as the general manager of the YPA’s hotels in 1887. Aiming to improve the quality of park-wide accommodations, the company planned a sophisticated hotel located on Yellowstone Lake. The site’s remoteness called for boat transportation, as stagecoach travel could be uncomfortable and slow. In 1889, the YPA named Waters president of its Yellowstone Lake Boat Company to meet this demand. The entrepreneur, though, was already making enemies across the company and the Interior Department. In 1890, the YPA fired him for extortion, poaching, and a geyser’s eruption by throwing soap into it. Yellowstone officials barred him from the park, but his connection with President Benjamin Harrison’s son got him reinstated that same year. In 1892, the Interior Department granted him a permit to transport visitors on his steamship, the Zillah, from Thumb Bay to the Lake Hotel area. The 125-passenger vessel was sent piece-by-piece from Minnesota and reassembled at the lake. By 1896, the Zillah was making stops at E.C. Waters' “zoo” on Dot Island. It was a little more than some corralled bison and elk, which he shipped in from outside the park. Passengers were unknowingly charged extra by Waters for the quick stop. To make matters worse, the bison and elk starved as his finances declined and operations fell into disrepair. Park administrators and visitors questioned the Zillah’s lakeworthiness, Waters’ concession license, and his overall moral character. Regardless, Waters built another steamship, the E.C. Waters, in 1905. It could carry 500 passengers, a violation of the park’s capacity limits. Fed up with his antics, park administrators refused to reinstate his lease and booted Waters from Yellowstone in 1907. A 1921 storm berthed the E.C. Waters on an island close to the hotel without ever transporting a single visitor. Park officials salvaged its parts over the next decades, most notably its boiler, which heated the Lake Hotel until the mid-twentieth century. What exactly became of the Zillah is unknown. Boat concessions continued after E.C. Waters sold his company in 1907, but the days of steamships and zoos were gone. Now, officials restrict lake operations to a tour boat, some motorboats, and paddle sports like kayaks. Visitors can still spot the skeleton of the E.C. Waters where it was shipwrecked years before, a testament to the hubris and ambition of its namesake.

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In the early 1900s, a common Latter-day Saint legend described how settlers in Provo were told by Native Americans that they had seen angels who declared that the people in this town would be blessed. Some of those blessings came about through Provo’s Y Mountain. In 1906, the Junior Class of BYU wanted to paint "‘07" on the mountain, upsetting members of the senior class. The President of Brigham Young University at the time, George H. Brimhall, and Brigham Young High School Principal Edwin S. Hinckley settled the argument by deciding that the letters “BYU” would be painted on the mountain. After 6 hours of painting, only the “Y” was completed, so the two other letters “B” and “U” were forgotten, the full plan discontinued. After the completion of the “Y,” students hiked up the mountain annually to re-paint the Y, creating a BYU Y Day tradition. More traditions and plans for the Y mountain would follow for the city of Provo, Utah and its residents.

The mountain plays an important role in BYU culture and the culture in Provo, Utah. It is the site of many traditions, such as lighting the Y for the holidays, BYU Homecoming, or the success of a school sports team. The tradition of lighting up the Y began in 1924. Another tradition for the incoming Freshman class at BYU involves dedicating a day for a Y mountain hike to celebrate their becoming a BYU Cougar. This tradition has carried through the years. Y mountain has been a symbol for Brigham Young University and the city of Provo, serving as one of the areas main tourist attractions. The traditions that revolve around the Y are important to BYU and Provo culture.

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The land that became Wyoming was originally the territory of Native peoples. Wyoming’s modern Native tribes include the Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and Crow. The California Trail, Oregon Trail, and Mormon Trail all passed through Wyoming and brought droves of white settlers through the area on their way to the West Coast and Utah the mid-nineteenth century, though few took up residence in the Wyoming area itself. The U.S. Government negotiated the Treaty of Fort Laramie in an effort to protect settlers moving through the area by compensating tribes and building forts. The U.S. Government soon reneged on these treaty obligations and on those of a second Fort Laramie Treaty, causing an escalating cycle of violence. The U.S. Government eventually forced the remaining Native peoples of Wyoming into the reservation system. Cheyenne began as a stop along the Union Pacific Railroad line in 1867 and quickly surpassed other population centers to become the Territorial Capitol and then State Capitol, as well as Wyoming’s largest city. Ranching, mining, and agriculture continued to draw a trickle of settlers, but the harsh environment, scarce arable land, and temperature extremes restricted the population. Wyoming became its own territory on July 25, 1868 under Andrew Johnson’s presidency and inaugurated its first government May 19, 1869. It achieved statehood July 10, 1890 despite disputes over whether it had achieved the minimum population threshold at that time. In 1886, the Territorial Legislature created a Capitol Commission to organize construction of a capitol building. It chose David W. Gibbs & Co. to design the Capitol and Adam Feick & Bros. to construct it at a bid of only $150,000, worth a little over $4,000,000 in 2020. The Territorial Legislature used the building even before its completion in 1890. By 1915, the State Legislature had outgrown the building and voted to add the House and Senate chambers to the structure, which were completed in 1917. The Capitol is a Renaissance Revival structure made of both native and Colorado sandstone with a copper dome, which was later gilded in 1900. The interior is finished in marble with a beautiful cherrywood staircase with murals decorating many of the walls. An enormous stuffed bison stands in part of the rotunda, and a bronze bison sculpture stands outside. The bison was a critical part of the diet and culture of the Native people of Wyoming and the intentional near extinction of the animal by white hunters was a severe blow to them. Now, the bison is a symbol of the state and adorns its flag. In 2016 the Capitol underwent a major renovation which restored decorative elements, added more accessibility with additional elevators and restrooms, and upgraded technology resources. These improvements, completed in 2019, will ensure that the State Capitol building can continue to function as the working seat of government for the people of Wyoming for many years to come.

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World War II affected many aspects of American life. The enlistment and drafting of so many young men after America’s entry into the war caused the college-enrolled population to rapidly decrease. Almost every institution of higher learning in the United States saw its student body shrink, though smaller state institutions, with their significantly lower funding and already small student bodies, were particularly affected. One such institution hard hit by the loss of so many young men to the military was Arizona State Teacher’s College (ASTC) in Flagstaff, now Northern Arizona University. The school lost so many students to the war effort that by the 1943-44 school year, the institution had shrunk to a student body of eighty-four, compared to a 1940 enrollment of 535 students. This reduction led many of the educators at the school, including President Thomas J. Tormey, to fear that the Arizona Board of Regents would shut the college down.

However, while the civilian educational institutes faced a dwindling population, the armed forces faced an opposite problem. The pre-war Army and Navy of the United States had been a small, underfunded force. With the declaration of war, the size of the United States Navy increased by seventy percent compared to its pre-war strength. This massive influx of new recruits overwhelmed the armed services pre-war training institutions. To address both of these problems, President Franklin Roosevelt encouraged the Departments of War and Navy to conduct the necessary training on the nation’s college campuses.

In 1942 the Navy selected ASTC as a site for the Navy College Training Program, designated the V-12 program. The Department of the Navy designed this program to train the swelling officer corps that would command the new two–ocean navy. The Navy chose enlisted men who had some college education for officer training. While ASTC effectively became a Navy base, the Navy allowed civilian students and teachers to remain on campus and to enroll in V-12 classes.

The institution became a strange intermediary between a naval base and a college. A geography class offered to sailors and regular students organized a Grand Canyon trip. When the program ended in October of 1945, 1,025 marines and sailors had passed through Flagstaff, 400 at a time. The influx of men and government funds kept the college afloat, with the Navy rental of dorm rooms bringing in an estimated $24,848 in profit, about $800,000 in current currency. Beyond the financial aspects, the influx of so many young servicemen changed life on the campus, turning it into a military institution. Many of the female students welcomed the influx of so many young and eligible men into the institution, with the local sororities often holding dances. After the war, many of the veterans returned to colleges on the G.I. Bill. In 1966, ASTC became Northern Arizona University.

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