Archives News

Here along the Wasatch Front, we periodically get some pretty wild windstorms. Some do more damage than others, so some are more memorable than others. In September 2020 we had a particularly strong storm that uprooted hundreds of trees and caused prolonged power outages. Coming as it did on the heels of Salt Lake’s largest recorded earthquake and in the

This is the first in a series of blog posts that will explore records held by the Utah State Archives that help illuminate the story of Utah’s role in the larger western movement to tame and develop the Colorado River as a vital resource in the arid west. THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN The Colorado River originates in the high Rocky

In 1894, Congress voted to invite Utah into the Union. President Grover Cleveland signed the Enabling Act, which allowed Utah to officially form a Constitutional Convention. Utahns moved with enthusiasm as they had been waiting for the opportunity to become a state for decades. They held an election to choose the delegates and convened the convention in March of 1895.

Did you miss Family History Day? Don’t worry – we recorded it! You can watch all the presentations, plus both brown bag lunch discussions, on our YouTube page. Click on the images below to watch! A big thank you to all the presenters for sharing their knowledge and skills with us.

Recently, a patron was reviewing water rights files from the 4th District Court for Utah County (Series 14435 – Civil Case Files, 1896-1958) when she discovered a sealed envelope of dirt or seeds in case #4076, Draper v. Draper. Being the curious archivist that she is, Heidi opened the envelope to discover the mystery material was indeed DIRT! Unfortunately, there

We are pleased to announce that two more years of death certificates are now available online as digital images. The years 1968 and 1969 first became publicly accessible 50 years after the dates of death on the certificates.  The State Archives works closely with the Office of Vital Records and Statistics in the Utah Department of Health. The OVRS is

Dr. Hubert F. Andrews had just graduated from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons when he settled in Gunnison, Utah, in the summer of 1899, taking a job as a Sanpete County quarantine doctor. A year earlier in 1898, Utah’s State Board of Health directed local governments to form their own health boards to oversee the diagnosis of contagious

Last month, Heidi and Alan (members of our Local Government team) found an unusual box labeled “valuable” when they were in Tooele City. Since there was interest in the contents of this mystery box, Heidi made an extra effort to inventory it quickly so we could share a little of what was inside. Let’s dig in! The underside of the

The traditional function of a map is to convey information about geography in a two-dimensional way and on a scale that is comprehensible to the user. Maps document relationships of places and geographical features to one another and allow for calculation of distances. They can show lakes, roads, rivers, towns, and even invisible jurisdictional boundaries. But the richest maps are

Weeding is used to get rid of non-records (binders, folders, post-it notes, etc.), redundant records (i.e. form letters where we only need to preserve one), and misidentified records in archival collections. Archivists use their authority to weed as a collection management tool to best utilize resources, particularly physical storage and digital space. Archives RIM specialists add the phrase “with authority