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Utah Historical Society | Museum of Utah

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📚🔍 Preserving and sharing Utah’s history
🏛️ Home to the Museum of Utah — now open!
🎟️ Free Admission
Mon 11am—8pm
Tues-Thurs 9am—8pm
Fri-Sun 9am—6pm

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The Museum of Utah will close early at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, November 11 in observance of Veterans Day. by @uthistoricalsociety

For #NationalAuthorsDay, we are proud to recognize W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich, and LaJean Purcell Carruth, authors of “This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle Over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah” (Oxford University Press, 2024).

🏆 The title is the 2025 Best Book in Utah History winner, awarded annually at the UHS Awards Ceremony to honor the year’s top contribution to state history.

🏆 In addition to this honor, the book also is a 2026 Utah Book Award Winner for general nonfiction, a project of The Utah Center for the Book at @utahhumanities (an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book) and The League of Utah Writers.

Join us in congratulating these authors for their outstanding contribution to Utah history and literature! 📚👏 by @uthistoricalsociety

Happy Halloween from the Utah Historical Society!

Enjoy this photo from the Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection, October 1953. by @uthistoricalsociety

Need more cowbell? 🤔🔔

See an authentic Olympic cowbell in the “Inspiring Utah” gallery, on loan from our friends at the @alfengenskimuseum!

Shoutout to our exhibitions team for committing to the Utah history bit this Halloween by dressing up as objects on display at the Museum of Utah, including the cowbell. #Halloween2026 #UtahHistory #MuseumofUtah #UHS #visitutah by @uthistoricalsociety

The Great Depression escalated around this time in 1929. To understand Utah during the Great Depression, we must understand how individuals, businesses, and government responded to the most severe economic crisis in American history.

We’ve put together a curated reading list on the subject from the “Utah Historical Quarterly”: articles about the personal strength, fortitude, and character shown by Utahns during the severe economic hardship; how Utah industry and business navigated the economic collapse; Utah Governor Henry Blood’s unique approach to assistance during the Great Depression; and more.

Find the reading list at the 🔗 in bio.

📸: Crowd at Crystal Palace Mkt. 1, May 1936, Clifton Bray Photograph Collection
📸: Governor Henry H. Blood, April 1938, Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection
📸: Consumers, Utah, March 1963 by Dorothea Lange, Classified Photograph Collection
📸: Gov. Henry H. Blood, 1937, Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection by @uthistoricalsociety

Last month, we hosted our inaugural Utah History Summit at the Michael O. Leavitt North Capitol Building and Museum of Utah, launching a memorable week dedicated to museum and history professionals across the West. We were equally honored to host an evening reception during the Western Museums Association and Utah Museums Association joint conference, highlighting the Museum of Utah.

Bringing together industry leaders, educators, and community members to discuss the future of public history and cultural stewardship was an incredible experience. Thank you to our partners, attendees, and staff for making these events a tremendous success.

Did you attend? What was your favorite part? Tell us what you’d like to see next year!

#UtahHistory #WMA #UMA #UtahHistorySummit #MuseumOfUtah by @uthistoricalsociety

Following the theme of ghost towns in Utah, in Box Elder County, Vipont became a high-altitude ghost town almost overnight.

Thriving from 1919 to 1923, this isolated mountain outpost of 500 residents depended entirely on Idaho for supplies. When federal silver subsidies ended in August 1923, silver prices crashed. Within thirty days, mine owners shuttered operations, residents boarded up their homes, and stagecoaches evacuated the town, leaving behind a silent cluster of decaying portals and empty mountain foundations.

Read more in the “Utah Historical Quarterly” by becoming a UHS member.

📖 “Vipont, Utah– A Lost and Almost Forgotten Ghost Town” by Faye Farnsworth Tholen in the “Utah Historical Quarterly”, Volume 71, Summer 2003.

#UtahHistory #GhostTowns #UtahMining #HistoricPlaces

📸: D. F. Ottley Photograph Collection by @uthistoricalsociety

We’ve been thinking about ghost towns this season, and how the rise and sudden death of Utah’s mining boomtowns reveal how quickly thriving communities can vanish into desert air, transformed overnight into spectral ruins. Mercur and Vipont, Utah stand as stark examples of towns that lived fast, died hard, and left behind haunting physical records.

Nestled in the Oquirrh Mountains, Mercur was a town that died three separate times. First settled in 1870 as Lewiston, it grew to 1,500 residents before dwindling to a single lonely inhabitant by 1880 due to water scarcity and barren silver pockets. It resurrected in the 1890s as a bustling gold center—pioneering industrial cyanide extraction and powering its boom with a world-first high-voltage line—only to be abandoned again after a second collapse in 1913. A final Great Depression revival in the 1930s reworked old waste dumps, leaving behind the massive concrete tanks and silent industrial ruins that haunt Manning Canyon today.

Read more in the “Utah Historical Quarterly” by becoming a UHS member.

📖 “The Ghost of Mercur” by Douglas D. Alder in the “Utah Historical Quarterly,” Volume 29, January 1961.

#UtahHistory #GhostTowns #UtahMining #HistoricPlaces

📸: Classified Photograph Collection by @uthistoricalsociety

This election season, want to thank the women who fought for women’s right to vote? Visit a cemetery! Today we went and thanked Emmeline B. Wells, Martha Hughes Cannon, Sarah M. Kimball, and Charlotte Godbe Kirby in the Salt Lake Cemetery.

You can also thank a suffragist by visiting our Google map (link in bio) and visiting one of their burial locations across Utah. We couldn’t include everyone, of course, so feel free to message @betterdays2020 or email info@betterdays2020.org to ask about women who may be buried in your town.

It has been fantastic to see so many of you sharing your photos from these visits. Continue to tag Better Days and we’ll continue to share.

#ThankASuffragist #HerStory #WomensHistory by @uthistoricalsociety

In October 1862, Colonel Patrick Edward Connor established Camp Douglas (now Fort Douglas) on the Wasatch mountain bench overlooking Salt Lake City. Dispatched during the American Civil War to protect Overland Mail routes and telegraph lines, Connor strategically positioned the garrison and its artillery to maintain direct federal military oversight over Brigham Young and the LDS population. The War Department officially renamed the installation Fort Douglas in 1878 to reflect its permanent military status. Following his discharge, he went into mining and became known as “the Father of Utah Mining.”

Learn more about Fort Douglas on History To Go, 🔗 in bio.

📸: Patrick Edward Connor, Peoples of Utah Photograph Collection
📸: Fort Douglas, Utah, 1928, Salt Lake City Aerial Photograph Collection, 1928-1934
📸: Fort Douglas, 43rd Regiment, Shipler Commercial Photographers Collection
📸: Fort Douglas, 1967, Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection
📸: Fort Douglas Soldiers, 1910, Shipler Commercial Photographers Collection
📸: Fort Douglas, 1940, Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection by @uthistoricalsociety

Handwritten in the 1970s. Shared across three generations. Now in our Peoples of Utah Revisited collection: a family favorite recipe for brown sugar muffins.

Here is how to make a piece of local history! Grandma K's handwritten Brown Sugar Muffins recipe, donated by Genevieve Jarvis Kitterman.

A heartfelt thanks to the Kitterman family for preserving these sweet everyday traditions and donating them to our Peoples of Utah Revisited collection.

🧑‍🍳: Peoples of Utah Revisited (POUR) Collection by @uthistoricalsociety

In our latest blog post, Women’s History Initiative team member Megan Weiss shares the history of Jessie Ellen Welsh Carter (1910–1994), a Utah aviation pioneer who played a foundational role in establishing early aviation along Utah's Wasatch Front. ✈️

She managed multiple airfields — including Utah Central, Carter Sky Ranch, and Lehi Airport — and helped train WWII military pilots. A licensed pilot and former Utah chair of the Ninety-Nines, she was inducted into the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame and is commemorated by a historical marker in Lehi.

Read the full history on our blog at the 🔗 in bio.

📸: Jessie Ellen Welsh Carter (1910-1994). Photo courtesy Family Search.
📸: Lehi Historical Marker unveiling at the Carter Airport.
📸: Jessie Carter and her child. Image courtesy Lehi Historical Society. by @uthistoricalsociety