A Story of Past Futures for the Utah State Archives

October marked the 20th anniversary of the formal opening of the current home of the Utah State Archives and Records Service at 346 S. Rio Grande Street. The anniversary gives us at the Archives the opportunity to reflect on how past visions of a purpose-built facility for the Archives brought us to where we are today. The Archives first became

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

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate the Utah Archives Month theme of food! Here are some of our favorite moments from October: Before the emergence of one-stop shop supermarkets, a variety of local grocers, butchers, and bakers in Salt Lake City delivered goods directly to customers’ homes. Ornate billheads give a glimpse into the kinds of food and sundries

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate the Utah Archives Month theme of water! Here are some of our favorite moments from October: Our friends at Utah State History hosted the 70th annual Utah State Historical Society conference with the theme of “Water at the Confluence of Past and Future”. In addition to our State Archives table, we also had a special

Each October, Utah joins the nation in celebrating Archives Month as a way to highlight the importance of records of enduring value and to raise public awareness of the role archives play in our daily lives. 2022 Theme Utah’s 2022 theme is Water, which is THE primary source! Archival records can provide a unique glimpse into the history of our human relationship with water

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.

The roots of the Utah State Archives and Records Service extend back to the earliest days of state government. The seeds were planted in 1917 when the Utah Legislature passed legislation establishing the Utah State Historical Society as a government agency. The law stipulated that the Historical Society serve as the custodian of all records, documents, relics, and other materials

This year the Utah State Archives and Records Service celebrates its 50th year as a division of state government. The history of our agency reaches back even further and we will spend this year’s Archives Month celebrating that history through a series of blog posts. On October 9th we will focus on the early history of our agency, up to