‘Know Your Utah’ sought to teach residents history in the mid-20th Century

“KNOW Your Utah” was a big campaign in most Utah newspapers starting in 1947, the 100^th anniversary of the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. The annual campaign continued into the mid-1950s.

Sponsored by the Sons of Utah Pioneers, the event released brainteasers and obscure historical facts to the public. For example, the Vernal Express newspaper of Jan. 2, 1847 and the Salt Lake Telegram of Jan. 10, 1949 listed:

-Part of Utah’s farmland lies in the Columbia River drainage system: some 2,400 acres, or about four square miles in the extreme northwest corner of the State.

-The original eight counties of the Provisional State of Deseret were: Davis, Iron, Salt Lake, Sanpete, Tooele, Weber, Utah and Uintah.

-The first company of Pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley included 143 men, three women and two children. For the remainder of 1847, another 1,700 pioneers arrived.

-If ancient Lake Bonneville were restored to its original depth, some 100 Utah communities, or about 90 percent of the State’s population would be under water. Temple Square would be submerged by 850 feet.

-Utah, in 1947, ranked sixth among the States in the production of turkeys.

                      Miles Goodyear Cabin in decades past.

-The oldest cabin Utah resides in Ogden, the Miles Goodyear Cabin in Tabernacle Park, build in 1844 or 1845.

                      The Miles Goodyear Cabin today.

-Utah’s population was 1,631 by end of 1847; was 40,000 by 1865; and was well over 600,000 in 1947.

-The Tabernacle on Temple Square was originally built without a balcony. Completed in 1867, the balcony was added in 1870.

-In 1878, the town of Silver Reef, 17 miles north of St. George, was one of the larger towns in Utah territory., with several thousand residents. The mining town is now deserted and only one building remains.

-In 1945, for the first time, ever, Utah led the nation in the production of gold, with 28 percent of the U.S. total. Also, in 1945 Utah produced more iron than all other western states combined.

-Life Magazine on Nov. 25, 1946 named the former Geneva Steelworks in Utah County “perhaps the world’s finest heavy industrial plant.”

-There was a thriving slave trade in Native American women and children by the Spanish and Mexicans in Utah Territory. Slave traders followed part of Escalante’s original trail and either stole or bought slaves Eventually Ute Chief Walker helped block the trail and set up a toll on slavery. Eventually, Brigham Young went to considerable effort to stamp out such slave trading. (-From the Springville Herald, Jan. 16, 1947.)

-“Sugarhouse was founded on April 23, 1854 and named by its residents for a sugar mill erected there in 1852 by early settlers. Machinery for the mill was purchased in Liverpool, England for $12,500 and shipped to its destination by water as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa, then overland by 52 ox teams, in a 4-month trip to Salt Lake City. As a commercial enterprise, the sugar mill was regarded as a failure, with only black syrup or molasses being produced. Later it was converted into a paper mill, supplying early Salt Lake valley needs.” (From the Salt Lake Telegram on Jan. 8, 1949.)