Archives News

In September 1996, President Bill Clinton made the controversial decision to draw on powers reserved to him by the 1906 Antiquities Act, and designate 1,880,461 aces of land in southern Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. But did you know that sixty years earlier federal officials were pondering the designation of a similar monument that would have dwarfed the area

The Superconducting Super Collider The history of human activity in Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert suggests that it is a place where the biggest of human ideas can take root. During the 1980’s this tendency took the shape of a detailed proposal to turn a section of Great Basin desert into the world’s most cutting edge science and research destination.

The MX Missile The MX Missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile utilized by the United States between 1985 and 2005. Development began on the MX missile (which stood for “Missile Experimental”) in 1971 and in 1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that 200 MX missiles would be deployed throughout western Utah and eastern Nevada. This proposed basing system was immediately

In 2022, the Colorado River Compact celebrated its 100th anniversary as the foundational agreement for a complex legal framework that has come to guide how the river’s waters are utilized by the western states, western tribes, and Mexico. In the leadup to that 100th anniversary, the Utah State Archives and Records Service digitized a variety of important records documenting Utah’s

Our hearts are hurting as we received word that Val Wilson, a former colleague and friend to many of us at the State Archives, passed away last month.  Val began his career at the State Archives in 1969 and remained on staff until his retirement in 2005—over 36 years! Val was an excellent reference archivist and had an incredible working

What Happened The Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred in September 1857 in a highland valley roughly 35 miles southwest of Cedar City. The Baker-Fancher emigrant party, traveling through Utah on their way from Arkansas to California, was attacked by members of the local Iron County Militia and purportedly some local Paiute Indians. The emigrants fought back and a five day siege ensued. On the

While not as well known or celebrated as Route 66, Highway 89 is a defining artery of tourism and exploration in the western United States. Traveling from the high mountains of Montana to the low deserts of Arizona, Highway 89 passes through (or is adjacent to) seven national parks, including Saguaro, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and

Our State Government Team has been providing assistance to the Department of Corrections as they work to move the State Prison from its current site in Draper to the newly constructed site west of the Salt Lake International Airport in 2022. With so much history, and lots of official records, this is a massive project that we are excited to

November 24, 2022 will mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Colorado River Compact. In the eleven months between January and November of 1922, multiple meetings were held between federal and western state representatives that resulted in the Colorado River Compact. Over the course of its history, the legal framework that has emerged to manage development of the

As we end another year, we wanted to take a moment to reflect and share some of the good work that our team at the Utah State Archives and Records Service did in the past twelve months to ensure the ongoing care and management of the public records that we hold in trust for the citizens of Utah. In 2021…