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…

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps removed Moraine Lodge from Rocky Mountain National Park in an initiative to restore the land to its original state. They converted the lodge’s remaining assembly hall into a museum in 1936 and the…

The first development at the Beaver Creek Administrative Area in what became Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park was in 1908, when Forest Service ranger Al Austin built the Stewart Ranger Station in what was then known as Teton National Forest.…

In the 1920s, the National Park Service gave the first permanent concession on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to the Union Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary Utah Parks Company. From 1901, the railroad provided transportation for tourists to the…

After Garrett Sullivan arrived in Pocatello in the early-1890s in search of gold, he eventually decided to make the bustling town his home. He began building a house in 1893, but it appears Sullivan never occupied it, as he began renting out the…

Henry Webber arrived in Aspen in 1880, a year after the city’s founding. At the time, it was a minuscule tent mining camp. Trained as a bootmaker, Webber established a boot and clothing store named “Webber and Company,” and he soon thrived. He…

In 1864, the year of Helena’s founding, John B. Sanford and Christmas Gift Evans (named after his birth date) arrived in Montana from the East Coast, beginning a friendship on their cross-country journey. In 1865, they formed a business partnership,…

Union, Oregon began as an industrial town in 1862, serving as one of the state’s primary economic centers through the end of the nineteenth century. Abel Elsworth Eaton, a former schoolteacher in the Midwest, moved to Oregon seeking financial gain,…

Constructed during Carson City’s heyday by state assemblyman Henry Hudson Beck in 1875, the Belknap House remains a well-preserved instance of the Second Empire style. Its distinguishing mansard roof, which curves downward from its flat top on four…

Christian Hansen was born January 15, 1820, in Skuldelove, Frederiksborg, Denmark. He served in the Danish military. Upon his return, he married Elizabeth Ericksen. In the year 1852, he was contacted by missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ…

Boston inventor and businessman Nathaniel J. Wyeth conducted two separate expeditions to the Pacific Northwest in 1832 and 1834 with his Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. On his latter expedition, Wyeth established a fort in what is now…

As the 1950s dawned, Brigham Young University administrators recognized the campus badly needed to expand in size and capacity. In addition to new buildings for housing and classrooms, expanding the bookstore was also necessary. After scrapping…