Timeline Utah
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Facts: https://www.50states.com/utah.htm
Jell-O is the official state snack and the California seagull is the official state bird.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
Over half of Utah is owned by the federal government.
(Econ., 5/2/15, p.27)
515Mil BC The Burgess Shale, a rock formation amid the glaciated mountains from British Columbia to Utah, created by mud slides that swept shallow water Cambrian creatures over a marine cliff and buried them almost instantly. Specimens include: Pikaia (a chordate, ancestor of fish, reptiles, and mammals), Odontogriphus, Amiskwia, Ottoia (a Priapulid worm), Wiwaxia (a Polychaete worm or mollusk), Burgessochaeta (an annelid worm), Opabinia, Sanctacaris (arthropod, forerunner of spiders and scorpions), Canadaspis (arthropod, early crustacean), Aysheaia (possible arthropod), Eldonia, Hyolith, Brachiopods, Dinomischus, Anomalocaris, Sponges and Trilobites. In 1989 Stephen Jay Gould authored "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History." In 1998 Simon Conway Morris authored "The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals."
(NG, V184, No. 4, Oct. 1993, p.124)(NH, 12/98, p.48)(SFC, 11/5/07, p.A3)
505Mil BC Scientists in 2007 reported that that fossils of tiny jellyfish, most barely a quarter inch in diameter, had been found in the Burgess shale of Utah and dated to this time, when shallow seas covered the area.
(SFC, 11/5/07, p.A3)
c200Mil BC The 3-toed Eubrontes, a 26-foot plant eater, and Dilophosaurus, a 20-foot-long meat-eater, fed along a muddy shoreline in what later became St. George, Utah. Their tracks were found in 2000.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A3)
190Mil BC In 2008 scientists discovered numerous dinosaur footprints dating to this time at the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument along the Utah and Arizona state border.
(SFC, 10/22/08, p.A4)
150Mil BC Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation in Utah has fossils of Diplodocus. Its 28 m length included a 14 m tail and an 8 m neck. It stood 4 m at its hips. Its vertebrae combined struts and hollows making it light and strong. The rear feet had three claws and the front had one. It was a plant-eater and also found near Thermopolis, Wyo.
(TE-JB, p.66)(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T1,5)
150Mil BC In 2008 the Bureau of Land Management in Utah announced a dinosaur find, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery." An excavation revealed at least four plant-eating dinosaurs and two carnivorous ones dating back to about 150 million BC.
(AP, 6/17/08)
125Mil BC The 12-foot dinosaur named Falcarius utahensis of this time was discovered in 2005 in south central Utah near the town of Green River. It was a primitive member of the therizinosaurs found in fossil bed in China.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A2)
125mil BC In 2010 US scientists announced the discovery of a small, feathered raptor-like dinosaur thought to be 125 million years old in eastern Utah. The Geminiraptor suarezarum was bipedal and, like other raptors, had a large head.
(AP, 12/17/10)
100Mil BC Fossils of a predator dinosaur that lived about this time in Utah were discovered in 2008. Scientists in 2013 named it Siats meekerorum, and said it was related to allosauroids.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
c100Mil BC Dinosaurs native to Asia traveled over to North America according to fossil evidence in Utah.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A2)
98.4Mil BC In 1999 it was reported that ankylosaur dinosaur (fused lizards) fossils from this time were found in Utah. Fossils of the nodosaur, a primitive ankylosaur lacking a tail club, were also found.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A2)
98Mil BC In Utah volcanic ash just above a large deposit of fossils was dated to this time.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A9)
80Mil BC In 2013 scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
80Mil BC - 75Mil BC In Utah rocks dating to this period contained burrows fossilized in sandstone. Scientists in 2010 speculated that signs of digging around the burrows were evidence of dinosaurs digging for small mammals.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.66)
76Mil BC The 15-foot dinosaur Nasutoceratops titusi lived about this time. Fossils of the 2.5 ton big-nosed, horned-faced dinosour were discovered in Utah in 2013.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A6)
70Mil BC A dinosaur species, later (2010) named Kosmoceratops (ornate horned-face), thrived in Utah about this time. It had 15 horns decorating its massive head, giving it the most elaborate dinosaur headdress known to science. Another species in Utah from this time, later (2010) named Utahceratops (Utah horned-face), was roughly 20 feet long and weighed 3 to 4 tons.
(http://tinyurl.com/25c48yu)
60Mil BC The Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation in southwest Wyoming represents the remains of an extinct tropical lake community that formed about this time and lasted about 20 million years. It included Fossil lake, Lake Uinta, and Lake Goshuite and covered parts of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.
(NH, 7/98, p.66)
50Mil BC - 42Mil BC The Green River Formation rocks are remnants of an ancient lake that covered more than 25,000 square miles of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Lake Uinta, Lake Gosiute, and Fossil Lake were deposited in this period. The Green River formation is known for deposits such as coal and oil shale, and for limestone containing abundant fish fossils in mass mortality layers. Fossils include the herring-like Knightia alta, and less frequently, other fish such as Priscacara, Mioplosus, Phareodus, and Diplomystus. Rare ancestral manta rays, palm leaves and birds have also been found.
(SFME, 5/7/95, P.5)
40Mil BC A climate change caused the end of the large lake system in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.
(NH, 7/98, p.68)
1Mil BC A Grand Canyon lava dam created a lake larger than Lake Mead and Lake Powell combined. It extended from Toroweap Canyon back through Lake Powell to beyond Moab, Utah-- a distance of more than 400 miles.
(NH, 9/97, p.39)
23000 BC Lake Bonneville crested and covered some 20,000 sq. miles over what is now Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
(NH, 9/96, p.62)
12000BC Lake Lahontan, which spread across northwest Utah, reached its highest level during the last phase of the last Ice Age.
(NH, 9/96, p.35)
100BC - 1300 This represents the time period of the Anasazi culture of northern Arizona, New Mexico, southern Utah and Colorado.
(WUD, 1994, p.53)
200-1215 The Fremont people lived in Utah and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8,9)
500-1315 The Fremont Indians lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon during this period and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)
900-1100 A Fremont culture settlement in Horse Canyon, Utah, left extensive ruins that became known as Range Creek.
(SFC, 6/30/04, p.A2)
1300 A drought pervaded the southwest of North America.
(Sm, 3/06, p.74)
1350 The Fremont Indians, who had lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon since about 200, disappeared from the archeological record.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)(Sm, 3/06, p.74)
1500 Geologists in 2009 said an earthquake of magnitude 6.5-7, dated to about this time, tore a deep gash into a 35-mile fault segment along the Wasatch front of Utah state.
(SFC, 9/25/09, p.A8)
1801 Jun 1, Mormon leader Brigham Young (d.1877), the second president of the Mormon Church, was born in Whitingham, Vt.
(AP, 6/1/97)
1805 Dec 23, Joseph Smith (d.1844), founder of the Mormon Church, was born in Sharon, Vermont. [see 1823,1830]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(HN, 12/23/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1820 Joseph Smith claimed that God and Christ appeared to him in Palmyra, NY, and told him not to join any existing church but to prepare for an important task.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1823 Sep 21, The Angel Moroni 1st appeared to Joseph Smith, according to Smith (founder of Mormon Church). Smith in New York claimed that an angel named Moroni led him to ancient golden plates that revealed the untold story of America during biblical times.
(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A1,6)(MC, 9/21/01)
1826 Aug 22, Colonies under Jedediah Strong Smith moved near Salt Lake Utah.
(http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-112/summary/index.asp)
1826 Nov 27, Jedediah Smith’s expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the south-western part of the continent. He crossed the Mohave Desert and the San Bernadino Mountains from Utah.
(HN, 11/27/98)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T5)
1827 Joseph Smith received his tablets on Mount Cumorah near Palmyra, NY.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1829 May 15, Joseph Smith was "ordained" by John the Baptist- according to Joseph Smith. Mormon church was founded in NY.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1830 Apr 6, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith and five others in Fayette, Seneca County, N.Y. Joseph Smith (25) published the “Book of Mormon" in Palmyra, New York. He claimed that the manuscript was based on ancient golden plates revealed to him by the angel Moroni and written in the language of the Egyptians. The book records the journey of an ancient Israelite prophet, Lehi, and his family to the American continent some 2,000 years ago. [see 1827, 1831] Some 5,000 copies of the book were published. In 2014 Avi Steinberg authored “The Lost Book of Mormon: A Journey Through the Mythic Lands of Nephi, Zarahemla & Kansas City, Missouri."
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NH, 10/96, p.19)(AP, 4/6/97)(SFC, 6/15/12, p.A24)(SSFC, 10/26/14, p.P3)
1831 Early followers of Joseph Smith merged with a communal Christian sect and relocated to Kirkland, Ohio. [see 1838]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)
1832 Mar 24, Mormon founder, martyr Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1836 Mar 27, The first Mormon temple was dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio.
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1837 Conflicts broke up the Mormon communities in Missouri and Ohio.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1838 Oct 31, A mob of about 200 attacked a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children. In the massacre at Haun’s Mill in western Missouri 17 Mormon settlers were killed. Joseph Smith was arrested and the Mormons were driver from the state.
(HN, 10/31/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1838 Nov 13, Joseph F. Smith, 6th president of Mormon church, was born.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1838 Amid rising debts and rumors of polygamy, the Mormons moved from Ohio to Far West, Mo., where they clashed violently with other settlers. [see 1839]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)
1839 Joseph Smith escaped from a Missouri prison and the Mormons left Far West, Mo., and started buying land for a new settlement in Nauvoo, Ill. [see1844]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1840 May 10, Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1841 Apr 6, Cornerstone was laid for 2nd Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Missouri.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1841-1846 The Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, Ill., was built.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)
1843 Jul 12, Mormon leader Joseph Smith said God encourages polygamy.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1844 Jun 27, Mormon Joseph Smith (38) and his brother, Hyram, were again imprisoned. A mob stormed the Carthage, Ill. prison and the brothers were killed. [see 1846] James Strang laid claim to being his rightful successor but Brigham Young soon took control of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Strang then began evangelizing in the Midwest and East with some success. His followers were later called "Strangites."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(AP, 6/27/97)
1844 Aug 8, Brigham Young was chosen to head the Mormon church following the killing of Joseph Smith in Illinois.
(AP, 8/8/97)(HN, 8/8/98)
1845 An account of the murder of Joseph Smith, Mormon leader, was published at Nauvoo, Ill., by an eye-witness named William M. Daniels.
(LSA., Fall 1995, p.18)
1846 Feb 4, The first Mormons left Nauvoo, Ill., and crossed the Mississippi River heading toward Utah. Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s successor, led the Mormons overland from Nauvoo, Ill., to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Mormon pioneer Sam Brannon gathered some 250 Mormons aboard the ship, Brooklyn, and sailed from New York to San Francisco. [see 1847]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1846 Feb 10, Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus to the west from Illinois.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1846 Jul 21, Mormons founded the 1st English settlement in the San Joaquin Valley of Calif.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1847 Jul 24, Mormon leader Brigham Young and some 17,000 followers, the first members of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.
(AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1847 The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was founded in Utah. In 2003 the 360-member group received a National Medal for the Humanities.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I10)
1847 Brigham Young, leading a group of about 140 Mormons, founded Salt Lake City. Known as Great Salt Lake City until 1868, the city went on to become the territorial, and later state, capital of Utah. Young designed the city to match Mormon founder Joseph Smith‘s plans for the city of Zion. Salt Lake City quickly became a destination for Mormon immigrants from Europe and the eastern United States.
(HNQ, 1/7/01)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1848 Seagulls save the crops of early settlers from a horde of crickets. The California seagull was later made the state bird.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
1849 A party from Kansas, headed for the California Gold Rush, called themselves the Jayhawkers. Another party from Missouri named themselves the Bugsmashers. Both groups left Salt Lake to late to cross the Sierra and took the southern route. The stumbled into the Death Valley region around Christmas.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A15)
1850 Sep 9, Territories of New Mexico & Utah created.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1850 Sep 29, Pres. Millard Fillmore named Mormon leader Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory.
(HN, 9/29/98)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1850 The Mormons applied unsuccessfully for Utah statehood. Debates with the federal government ensued over political issues and polygamy.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1850s Mormon settlers began arriving on Hawaii. Church members sent money to buy up all the property on Lanai. William Gibson registered the land under his own name and refused to hand the deeds over to the Mormon Church. Gibson went on to become a friend, advisor and cabinet minister to King Kalakaua.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.T10)
1852-1892 The Salt Lake Temple on Temple Square in Salt lake City was constructed over this period.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N2)
1853 Oct 26, R.H. Kern, American artist, was killed by Indians in Utah.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1853 John C. Fremont began his 5th expedition west, his 2nd into the Colorado Mountains, and traveled across Kansas, southern Colorado and Utah in search of a railroad route over the Central Rockies. The group reached Mormon settlements in Utah. Fremont brought along photographer Solomon Nunes Carvalho, who took hundreds of daguerreotypes. Many of the images were lost in an 1881 NYC warehouse fire. In 1994 Robert Shlaer set out to recreate the images and in 2000 published "Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Fremont’s Last Expedition Through the Rockies."
(SFEC, 7/9/00, BR p.12)(ON, 12/06, p.7)
1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39) 1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39)
1857 Sep 11, The Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory was carried out by Mormons fearful of an impending invasion by the US Army. Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, John Doyle Lee, offered safe passage to the nearly 150 men, women and children on the Fancher train from Arkansas crossing Mormon Utah bound for California, if they left their weapons, livestock and wagons behind-ostensibly to appease hostile Indians. All but the youngest children were slaughtered. Lee, who first blamed the massacre on Paiute Indians, was excommunicated in 1870 and tried, convicted and executed in 1877 for his role in the killings. 120 settlers were killed; 17 children, all under 7, were spared. In 2002 Will Bagley authored “Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows." In 2011 the site was dedicated as a national historic landmark.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)(AP, 9/11/07)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
1857 Sep 15, Mormon leader Brigham Young called out the Nauvoo Legion to fight the U.S. Troops if they enter Utah Territory.
(http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Utah_War)
1858 Apr 6, President Buchanan issued a proclamation declaring Mormons in the Utah Territory to be in a state of rebellion against the US government.
(AP, 4/6/08)
1858 Jun, The US Army entered Utah and installed a new governor.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1861 Mar 2, US Congress created the Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories
(SC, 3/2/02)
1862 Jul 1, The US Congress outlawed polygamy for the 1st time. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Pres. Lincoln, made polygamy illegal in American territories. It led to the prosecution of over 1300 Mormons. It also granted large tracts of public land to the states with the directive to sell for the support of institutions teaching the mechanical and agricultural arts. It also obligated state male university students to military training. The education initiative resulted in 68 land-grant colleges.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.8,14)(HNQ, 10/6/02)(MC, 7/1/02)
1866 Apr 6, Butch Cassidy, [Robert Parker], US desperado (Wild Bunch Passage), was born. [see Apr 13,15]
(HN, 4/6/98)(MC, 4/6/02)
1866 Apr 13, Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker], American western outlaw and leader of the Wild Bunch, was born in Beaver, Utah. [see Apr 6,15]
(HN, 4/13/99)
1866 Apr 15, Robert LeRoy Parker, a.k.a. "Butch Cassidy," was born in Beaver, Utah. [see Apr 6,13]
(MesWP)
1867 The Tabernacle, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, was completed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N2)
1868 Apr 6, Brigham Young married his 27th and final wife (I am done with wifery).
(MC, 4/6/02)
1869 May 6, A special Southern Pacific train left Sacramento bound for Utah to drive the final spike connecting the SP to the Union Pacific on May 8. The UP train did not arrive until May 10.
(WSJ, 8/25/00, p.W10)
1869 May 10, In the desert near Promontory, Utah, railway official Leland Stanford, drove down a golden spike to unite the tracks from the east and the west. The first transcontinental railroad was completed when the Union Pacific Railroad--building west from Omaha, Nebraska--and the Central Pacific--building east from Sacramento, California--met at Promontory Point, Utah. Recognizing that transportation was essential to the economic development of the nation, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1862 that provided for the construction of a railroad linking the east and west coasts. More than 10,000 laborers recruited from China worked on the CPR. A depression followed the completion of the railroad and the Chinese became a target of ill-will as unemployment soared. Engine 350 was the first one down the Union Pacific line and commemorative platters were made for the occasion. In 1999 David Howard Bain published "Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad." In 2000 Stephen E. Ambrose authored "Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869." In 2007 Richard Rayner authored “The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(SFC,1/22/97, Z1 p.7)(HN, 5/11/99)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.A28)(WSJ, 8/25/00, p.W10)(SSFC, 12/17/00, BR p.10)(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.M1)(SSFC, 5/5/19, p.A2)
1870 Feb 12, Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote. However, that right was taken away in 1887.
(AP, 2/12/07)
1871 Oct 2, Mormon leader Brigham Young, 70, was arrested for polygamy. He was later convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1871 In Utah the Mormon temple in St. George was completed. This was the 3rd Mormon temple to be built in the US and the first one in Utah.
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.R10)
1871 The Salt Lake Tribune was founded by dissident Mormons.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1873 Jan, Ann Eliza Young (b.1844), one of the many wives of Mormon leader Brigham Young, revolted against the indignities and hypocrisy of polygamy. Her divorce was granted in January, 1875.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Eliza_Young)
1873 Aug 18, Otto Harbach, songwriter (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes), was born in, SLC, Utah.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1873-1874 Carleton Watkins photographed Weber Canyon.
(WSJ, 8/20/99, p.A16)
1875 In the early autumn Brigham Young sent Daniel W. Jones and five elders on horseback to Mexico. During the 3,000-mile trip, the missionaries stopped frequently in New Mexico and Arizona, preaching the gospel and converting Indians. Jones and his team arrived in Franklin, Texas, (El Paso) in 1876, crossing through present-day Juarez. They were warmly welcomed by Mexican officials.
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1877 Aug 29, Brigham Young (76), the second president of the Mormon Church, died in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1877 John Doyle Lee, Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, was executed for his role in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory. The 2002 novel “Red Water" by Judith Freeman told the story and set the execution in 1887.
(HN, 9/11/98)(HNQ, 9/14/99)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.M1)
1879 Mar 17, The US Supreme Court in Wilkerson v. Utah ruled that Utah could use a firing squad for capital punishment.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/99/130/case.html)
1879 May 5, The US Supreme Court supported the power of states to restrict polygamy in Reynolds vs. United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._United_States)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
1879 May 16, Wallace Wilkerson was executed by firing squad in Utah. It was so disgraceful that one newspaper, the Ogden Junction, sarcastically reminded the state that "the French guillotine never fails." It was 27 minutes before he could be pronounced dead.
(http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/012896.html)
1880 David King Udall (1851-1938), while living in Nephi, Utah, was called to be the Mormon bishop in St. Johns, Arizona, a small and primarily Hispanic Catholic community.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_King_Udall)
1882 Mar 22, US Congress outlawed polygamy. The Edmunds-Tucker Act was adopted by the US to suppress polygamy in the territories. [see Morrill Act 1862]
(AP, 3/22/97)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)
1885 May 15, Mormons began an exodus from the United States into Mexico. Chihuahua Governor Ochoa had agreed to sell land to the Mormons to colonize. Church President John Taylor had explored the area and church officials selected Casas Grandes, a valley in the state of Chihuahua, as the place to begin settlement.
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1886 Assembly Hall, a gothic-style building built by the Latter-day Saint pioneers, was completed in Salt Lake City.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N3)
1887 Feb 19, The 49th US Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act. It abolished women's suffrage, forced wives to testify against their husbands, disincorporated the LDS Church, dismantled the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, abolished the Nauvoo Legion, and provided that LDS Church property in excess of $50,000 would be forfeited to the United States.
(http://somemormonstuff.blogspot.com/2007/02/edmunds-tucker-act-chap.html)
1889 The Khan Mansion was built in SLC.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C11)
1890 Sep 25, Wilford Woodruff, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a Manifesto formally renouncing the practice of polygamy. The Mormons renounced the practice of polygamy after six decades in exchange for statehood for Utah. Smith’s revelation that God authorized polygamy remained in Article 132 of the church’s Doctrine and Covenants.
(SFC, 8/6/98, p.A11)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)(AP, 9/25/07)
1893 Jan 4, US president Cleveland granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1893 Apr 6, Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City was dedicated.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1895 Mar 28, Spencer W. Kimball, 12th Prophet of the Mormon Church, was born.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1896 Jan 4, Utah was admitted to the Union as the 45th state.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1900 Jan 25, the US 56th Congress refused to seat Brigham H. Roberts, Mormon Democrat from Utah, because of his polygamy.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1906 Aug 19, Philo T. Farnsworth (d.1971), inventor (electronic TV), was born in Beaver County, Utah.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarnsworth.htm)
1907 Jul 8, George W. Romney, later governor of Michigan, was born into a Mormon family in Chihuahua, Mexico. He later was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination until he admitted that he had been "brainwashed" by the military on the Vietnam War.
(HN, 7/8/98)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)
1909 Earl Douglass discovered dinosaur bones in eastern Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)
1910 Senator William Curry built his Curry Manor in Vernal.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T9)
1911 Sep 23, Frank Moss (d.2003), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), was born in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1913 Loretta Young (d.2000), film actress, was born in Salt Lake City as Gretchen Michaela Young.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.B10)
1914 Jan 10, In Utah John Morrison, a Salt Lake City grocer and father of six, was shot dead along with his son (17) after two men entered his shop. Labor leader Joe Hill (1879-1915) was soon treated for a fresh gunshot wound and was later tried and convicted for murder.
(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1915 Oct 4, Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah was established. Pres. Woodrow Wilson established Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)(MC, 10/4/01)
1915 Nov 19, Joe Hill (b.1879), labor leader and songwriter, was executed for murder. Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom) was executed after being convicted of killing two men in a holdup in Salt Lake City in 1914. He claimed the charges against him were trumped up and won worldwide support, including that of President Woodrow Wilson. Nevertheless, Hill was tried, convicted and executed by firing squad. Hill, born Joel Haggelund in Sweden in 1879, went to the United States in 1902 and soon joined the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies). In 2011 William Adler authored “The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill)(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A21)(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1920 Oct 13, Laraine Day (d.2007), film actress, was born in Roosevelt, Utah. Her work included over 4 dozen films from the late 1930s to 1960.
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.D9)
1921-1924 Charles Rendell Mabey served as governor.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A21)
1922 The Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1924 Mar 8, Coal mine explosion killed 171 at Castle Gate, Utah.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1926 Feb 17, An avalanche buried 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah, and 40 died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1928 The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, a 74,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge in Utah, was established.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1930 Jun 17, Pres. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, placing the highest tariff on imports to the U.S. It was sponsored by Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, and Reed Smoot, a senator from Utah. An international trade war began with the US passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Foreign countries retaliated. Many economists blame Smoot-Hawley for deepening the depression. It reflected the "Protectionism" of the times.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(HN, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1930 Jul 7, Construction began on Boulder Dam on the Colorado River. It is now known as Hoover Dam. Paul Wattis was an executive with Utah Construction and Mining, a family business that built the Boulder Dam. Bechtel was one of 6 companies that built the dam.
(AP, 7/7/97)(SFEC, 11/30/97, p.C13)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.E2)
1933 Apr 7, “Near beer" (3.2 beer) became legal after FDR signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, which had made drinking alcohol a federal crime. Prohibition ended when Utah became the 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment. [see Dec 5]
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(HN, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1933 Dec 5, Prohibition was repealed--much to the delight of thirsty revelers--when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The nationwide prohibition of the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages was established in January 1919 with passage of the 18th Amendment. Prohibition's supporters gradually became disenchanted with it as the illegal manufacture and sale of liquor fostered a wave of criminal activity. By 1932, the Democratic Party's platform called for the repeal of Prohibition. In February 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th and with Utah's vote in December, Prohibition ended. Three-quarters of the states approved the repeal of the 18th amendment and FDR proclaimed the end of Prohibition.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(AP, 12/5/97)(HNPD, 12/5/98)
1934 Mar 22, Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator from Utah, was born.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1935 Sep 3, Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive an automobile over 300 MPH. Campbell drove the Bluebird Special on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah at a speed of 304.331 MPH.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1936-1947 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) was the mayor of Price, his hometown.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1937 Alta ski resort near Salt Lake City opened with a rope tow as the 2nd US ski resort. It was designed by Alf Engen (d.1997), ski-jump champion.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A16)
1942 Sep 17, Japanese detainees from the California assembly center at Tanforan race track began their transfer to Abraham, Utah, 140 miles south of SLC. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. The first trainload internees arrived at the Topaz internment camp. By October the desert camp had reached its maximum capacity of 8,232.
(Ind, 2/2/02, 5A)(SFC, 4/230/16, p.C2)
1942-1945 Dave Tatsuno (1914-2006) shot a home video, later named "Topaz," in the Topaz Relocation Center in the central Utah desert. In 1997 it was placed on the National Film Registry, becoming the second home movie added to the list.
(SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)(www.scu.edu/diversity/tatsuno.html)
1944 Jun, Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted tests at Granite Peak, a 250-square-mile area near the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
(AH, 6/03, p.49)
1946 Mine Okubo authored “Citizen 13660," an illustrated account of her experiences at Japanese internment camps in California and Utah.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A24)
1946 A dissenting Mormon sect from Utah set up a community practicing polygamy in Bountiful, BC, Canada. In 2009 2 leaders of the Bountiful commune appeared in court to answer criminal charges.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.44)
1947 The Mormon church membership grew to 1 million.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1948 May 29, Anthony Geary, actor (Luke/Bill-General Hospital), was born in Coalville, UT.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1949-1957 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) governed Utah.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1951 Willam Christensen (d.2001 at 99), master of the SF Opera Ballet, returned to Utah and founded the 1st ballet department in an American Univ. at the Univ. of Utah.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.B2)
1951 In Utah an interview with madam Rossette Duccinni Davie, who ran the Rose Rooms brothel in Ogden with her husband in the 1940s and 1950s, was transcribed in shorthand style. The interview with former Standard-Examiner reporter Bert Strand was hidden inside a box of 1970s photos from the newspaper and only became public in 2020.
(AP, 2/1/20)
1952 The Salt Lake Tribune entered a joint operating agreement with the Mormon run Deseret News.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1955 Jan 30, Jill Kinmont Boothe (1936-2012), Los Angeles native and national women's slalom champion, crashed and broke her neck in Alta, Utah, while trying to make the US Olympic team. She was paralyzed below her shoulders and would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Her skiing career over, she learned to write, type and paint using her neck and shoulder muscles with the aid of a hand brace.
(AP, 2/12/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Kinmont_Boothe)
1956 Phyllis, the 92-year-old great-granddaughter of Brigham Young, and Paul Lyman Wattis (d.1971), of Utah Construction and Mining, established a philanthropic foundation to spread their wealth.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.D7)
1958 Jul 11, Monument Valley, straddling the Arizona-Utah border, became the 1st Navajo Tribal Park.
(SSFC, 10/6/02, p.C15)
1958 Frank Moss (1911-2003), liberal Utah Democratic was elected US Senator (1958-1976). He served until 1976 when he was defeated by Orrin Hatch.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
c1960 The Tooele Army Depot decided to dispose of its old munitions by blowing them up every spring and summer. In an uncritical climate Magcorp magnesium refinery set up shop nearby and split magnesium chloride extracted from the Great Salt Lake. A hazardous waste zone, incinerators and landfills followed. In 1999 Chip Ward authored "Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West."
(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.4)
1960-1972 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) was the mayor of Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1962-1973 In Utah the Deseret Test Center conducted 46 chemical warfare exercises at Fort Douglas.
(SFC, 11/1/02, p.A3)
1968 Open air testing of chemical weapons at the US Army Dugway Proving Grounds in the Utah desert caused the deaths of some 3,600 [6,400] sheep in an adjacent valley.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 6/1/98, p.A1)
1969 Robert Redford bought 6000 acres in Utah’s Provo Canyon with the idea of establishing a community devoted to art and nature.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.2)
1970 Robert Smithson (1938-1973), American minimalist land artist, created his “Spiral Jetty," a 1,500 foot coil of rock extending from the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
(WSJ, 10/29/05, p.P16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson)
1971 Mar 11, Philo T. Farnsworth (b.1906), inventor of television, died in Salt Lake City, Utah. Later Prof. Donald Godfrey authored "Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television" and Evan I. Schwartz authored "The Last Lone Inventor."
(SFC, 9/7/02, p.D1)(www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/farnsworth.cfm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy (1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He parachuted into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
{Hijacking, USA, USA, FBI}
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Aug 10, An Earth-grazing meteoroid grazed the atmosphere above Canada. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Daylight_1972_Fireball)
1972 S. George Ellsworth (d.1997), historian, published “Utah Heritage," a 7th grade textbook history of the state. It was updated in 1994.
(SFC, 12/26/97, p.B6)
1972-1988 The Great Salt Lake of Utah roughly doubled in size over this period.
(NH, 9/97, p.16)
1974 Aug 29, Moses Malone became the first basketball player to go straight from high school to the pros when he joined the Utah Stars.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)
1974 Oct 2, Nancy Wilcox, believed to have been a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy (d.1989), disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/wilcox_nancy.html)
1974 Oct 31, Suspected Bundy victim Laura Aime disappeared in Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1974 Nov 8, Debi Kent disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was later identified as another victim of Theodore “Ted" Bundy (1946-1989), the Green River Murderer, who would be officially convicted of killing 36 women and executed on January 24, 1989, in Florida.
(www.crimelibrary.com/bundy/attack.htm)
1975 Jul 4, Nancy Baird (23), a Bundy victim, disappeared from a convenience store where she worked in Layton, Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1975 Claude Rex Nowell (1944-2008), founded his Church of Summum in Utah and changed his name to Summum Bonum Amen Ra following an alleged visit by extraterrestrial beings.
(WSJ, 11/13/08, p.A14)(www.summum.us/about/corkybio.shtml)
1976 Nov 2, In Utah Orrin Hatch defeated 18-year incumbent Senator Frank Moss.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1976 Nov 10, The Utah Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for convicted murderer Gary Gilmore to be executed, according to his wishes. The sentence was carried out the following January.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1976 Allan Howe (d.2000) lost his re-election bid to the Congress following a conviction for soliciting sex in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B5)
1976 The US Congress asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to find land that might qualify for wilderness protection. It found 3.2 million eligible acres in Utah. Congressional legislation established rules for the BLM’s management of federal land.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.26)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.33)
1976 Utah Int’l. Inc., under Edmund Littlefield, merged with General Electric in a $2.2 billion deal, the largest to date. The Utah company had built the Hoover Dam.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D6)(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A15)
1977 Jan 17, Gary Gilmore (b.1940), convicted for two murders he committed in Utah, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first US execution in a decade. In 1979 Norman Mailer authored his Pulitzer Prize winning book: “The Executioner’s Song," the story of Gary Gilmore.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gilmore)(AP, 1/17/98)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.103)0
1978 Jun 8, Utah leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon lay priesthood, going on missions or getting married in temples. Prophet Spencer Kimball opened the Mormon priesthood to blacks.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ts747g)(SFC, 6/2/18, p.A7)
1978 Jun 11, Joseph Freeman Jr. became the 1st black priest in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
(www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1979/4/1979_4_110.shtml)
1978 Jun 23, Joseph Freeman Jr., the 1st black priest in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, went in the Salt Lake Temple with his wife and 5 sons for sacred ordinances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_(LDS))
1978 Jul 23, Franklin Bradshow was killed in SLC, Utah. His daughter, Frances B. Schreuder (d.2004), had persuaded her son to kill her wealthy father due to "his stinginess." Schreuder was convicted in 1983.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.B6)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit anywhere to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp. produced the F-16 fighter jet. It became the first production military aircraft to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002, p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1979 Dec 5, Feminist Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church because of her outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
(AP, 12/5/99)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1980 Jun 20, Lake Powell, straddling the Arizona-Utah border behind the Glen Canyon Dam, completed its fill, which began in 1963
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A1)(www.lakepowell.com/travel/glen-canyon-dam.cfm)
1980 Robert Redford established the Sundance Resort and Institute in Provo Canyon to support independent filmmaking and playwriting.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.2)
1981 Mar 4, A jury in Salt Lake City convicted Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two black men who were shot to death.
(AP, 3/4/01)
1981 Oct 8, An explosive device at the Univ. of Utah was defused. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC, 11/9/97, Z1 p.4)
1981 Robert Redford founded a Film Festival in Sundance, Utah. In 1985 the festival moved to Park City, Utah. In 1991 it was named the Sundance Film Festival.
(www.cffvf.org/sundance-film-festival.html)
1982 May 3, Sinbad the Sailor, the star horse of Ronald Reagan’s “Death Valley Days" TV series, died when he was struck by lightning at Kanab, Utah.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C12)
1982 Dec 2, In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik. Barney Clark, a retired dentist, lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart.
(AP, 12/2/97)(HN, 12/2/98)
1983 In Utah rising floodwaters impacted the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. In 1991 Terry Tempest Williams authored "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place."
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1984 Jul 24, In American Fort, Utah, Ron and Dan Lafferty stabbed to death their sister-in-law, Brenda Lafferty, and her daughter Erica, aged 15 months. In 2003 Jon Krakauer authored "Under the Banner of Heaven," an account of the murder and the Mormon background of the Laffertys.
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W15)
1984 Dec 19, Near Orangeville, Utah, 27 miners died in a coal mine fire due to a faulty air compressor at the Wilberg Mine.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A14)(AP, 12/19/04)
1984 The 200-acre Best Friends Animal Sanctuary was located to Angel Canyon in Southern Utah. It was the largest no-kill animal shelter in the country.
(SFEM, 6/6/99, p.6)
1985 Apr 2, Ronnie Gardner shot and killed Utah attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt at the Metropolitan Hall of Justice in Salt Lake City. Gardner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2010 Gardner (49) chose to die by firing squad, an option which was removed by state lawmakers in 2004, but still available to him.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A5)
1985 Nov 5, Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon Church, died at age 90; he was succeeded by Ezra Taft Benson.
(AP, 11/5/05)
1987 Feb 20, The Unabomber placed a bomb in a parking lot behind CAAMS computer store in Salt Lake City. CAAMS vice president, Gary Wright was seriously injured.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A3)(AP, 2/20/98)
1988 Jan 28, A 13-day standoff in Marion, Utah, between police and a polygamist clan ended in gunfire that killed a state corrections officer and seriously wounded the group's leader, Addam Swapp.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1989 Feb 24, In Utah a 150-million-year-old fossil egg, still inside the mother, was found by CAT scan to contain the oldest dinosaur embryo.
(http://tinyurl.com/fme92)
1989 Mar 23, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced atomic fusion at room temperature.
(SS, 3/23/02)(WSJ, 9/5/03, p.B1)
1990 Sep 2, Brian Watkins (22), a tourist from Utah, was stabbed in the heart and died in NYC while defending his family from muggers. Seven young men were convicted in the case. In 2015 a judge overturned the conviction of Johnny Hincapie (43) and ordered a new trial. Hincapie had testified that a detective beat him to get a signed confession.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=60727659)(Econ, 12/8/12, p.31)(SFC, 10/7/15, p.A7)
1991 Jan 18, Three young people were crushed to death at an AC-DC concert in Salt Lake City.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Sep 21, An 18-hour hostage drama ended in Sandy, Utah, as Richard L. Worthington, who had killed a nurse and seized control of a hospital maternity ward, finally freed his nine captives, including a baby who was born during the siege. Worthington committed suicide in prison in 1994.
(AP, 9/21/01)
1994 May 30, Mormon Church president Ezra Taft Benson died in Salt Lake City at age 94.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1995 Mar 3, Howard Hunter (87), US leader of Mormon Church (1994-95), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1995 Mar 12, Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008), a grandson of Mormon pioneers, took over as president and prophet of the Mormon church.
(AP, 1/28/08)
1995 Jun 16, Salt Lake City was awarded the XIX Winter Olympic Games for 2002. A scandal later developed over pay-offs.
(AP, 6/16/00)
1995 Dec 11, Utah Congresswoman Enid Greene Waldholtz held an emotional news conference in which she publicly addressed the scandal surrounding her personal and campaign finances and blamed the mess on her estranged husband, Joe.
(AP, 12/11/00)
1995 The Slamdance Film Festival was founded by Peter Baxter as an alternative to the Sundance Film Festival.
(SFC, 2/1/99, p.E1)
1995 Frank Curtis, a Mormon brother, died. He had been convicted of criminal sex abuse. In his 1998 lawsuit filed in Multnomah County, Oregon, Jeremiah Scott, accused the church of hiding the fact that Curtis, one of its high priests, was a pedophile. Curtis was excommunicated from the church in 1983 in Pennsylvania but was rebaptized in 1984 in Michigan. In 1988, he joined the Brentwood Ward in Portland. In 2011 Lisa Davis authored “The Sins of Brother Curtis: A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church.
(SSFC, 3/20/11, p.G7)
1996 Jan 26, In Utah John Albert Taylor (b.~1960) was executed by firing squad. He had been sentenced to death for the 1988 rape and strangulation of 11-year-old Charla King and had then chosen the firing squad as the method of execution.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Albert_Taylor)
1996 Mar 5, Representative Enid Greene Waldholtz (Republican, Utah), tangled in a financial mess that she blamed on her estranged husband, announced she would not seek a second term.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Sep 18, Pres. Clinton signed an executive order to transform 1.7 million acres of Utah land into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.T5)
1996 Bruce Babbitt, US Sec. of the Interior, called for another survey of land that might qualify for wilderness protection, which yielded another 2.6 million acres in Utah.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.26)
1996 A Utah law granted a concealed weapons permit to anyone who is 21 or older, who can prove “good character" and attends a short firearms course.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A6)
1997 The Salt Lake Tribune became an asset of Tele-Communications Inc. following the TCI merger with Kearns-Tribune Corp.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1998 Mar 25, Sumitomo Bank of California, the state’s 6th largest retail bank, announced its sale to Zions Bancorporation of Salt Lake for $546 million.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.E1)
1998 May 23, John Daniel Kingston drove his daughter (17) to a remote family ranch and beat her for running away from a polygamous marriage. She had been forced to marry her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, and become his 15th wife. The uncle was convicted for incest and unlawful sex in 1999.
(SFC, 8/6/98, p.A11) (SFC, 6/4/99, p.A3)
1998 May 29, Three men shot and killed police officer Dale Claxton of Cortez, Colo., when he stopped them in a suspected stolen water truck. The body of Alan Pilon, a suspect in the murder, was found in the Utah desert in 1999.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A7)
1998 Jun 14, The Chicago Bulls clinched their sixth NBA championship, defeating the Utah Jazz in game six played in Salt Lake City, 87-86.
(AP, 6/14/03)
1998 Aug 7, Five young girls (ages 2-6) died from heat exposure after they were trapped in the trunk of a car in West Valley City.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A5)
1998 Sep 10, In Utah Anna Palmer (10) was stabbed to death in Salt Lake City. In 2010 DNA evidence linked Matthew John Breck to her murder. Breck, serving time in Idaho for a 2001 conviction of sodomy with a minor, was extradited to Utah.
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.A6)(http://missing87975.yuku.com/sreply/11770)
1998 Sep 19, David Fink (20 months) was kidnapped by his parents from a hospital in SLC where he was being treated for malnourishment. His parents claimed he was a Christ Child. The family was found in Montana Oct 5 and the parents were taken into custody.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 27, Alex Joseph (62), founder of Big Water, died. He was reputed to have wed 20 women and left behind 21 grandchildren.
(SFC, 9/29/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 12, Marc Hodler (1919-2006), Swiss lawyer and International Olympics Committee official, unleashed a series of corruption allegations that included systemic buying and selling of votes in Olympic bidding, particularly for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 10/21/06, p.B6)
1999 Jan 8, Two top organizers of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City resigned in a mushrooming bribery scandal.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 22, A 2nd member of the Int'l. Olympic Commission resigned as part of the bribery scandal on the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 15, In Salt Lake City, Utah, Sergei Babarin (70) entered the Mormon Church's Family History Library and opened fire. He killed 2 people, Patricia Frengs of Pleasant Hill, Ca. and security guard Donald Thomas (62). He wounded 4 others and was shot dead by police.
(SFC, 4/16/99, p.A3)(SFC, 4/17/99, p.A2)
1999 May 24, The new Mormon Church genealogical web site was unveiled and overloaded @ www.familysearch.org.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 11, A tornado hit downtown Salt Lake City killing one person and injuring over a hundred.
(SFC, 8/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 4, Eight teenagers taking part in a wilderness program for troubled youths beat one counselor and tied another to a tree and fled into the desert. They were all rounded up within days and 7 of 8 accepted plea bargains.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Richard and Joan Ostling authored “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise."
(www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/charles/mormonsyl.htm)
1999 The Salt Lake Tribune became an asset of ATT following the ATT merger with Tele-Communications Inc.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 14, The federal government announced the return of 84,000 acres in northern Utah to the Ute Indians. The land was taken in 1916 for the rights to oil shale reserves.
(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb, Sheldon Johnson found 200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints in his backyard in St. George.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A3)
2000 Aug 1, A fire and methane gas explosion killed 2 workers at the Willow Creek Mine and injured 8 others.
(SFC, 8/2/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 11, As many as 8 people subdued Jonathan Burton (19) during a flight to Salt Lake City from Las Vegas after he broke into the cockpit. Burton was pronounced dead on arrival to a Salt Lake hospital.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A6)
2000 Oct, The 2-year-old son of Paul Wayment wandered from his truck and froze to death. Wayment killed himself in 2001 following a plea of negligent homicide.
(SFC, 7/19/01, p.A7)
2000 The 100th Mormon temple was dedicated in Belmont, Mass.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
2001 Jan 13, In Utah a small plane crashed into the Great Salt Lake and all 9 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.A2)
2001 Apr 4, Ed Roth (“Big Daddy") died at age 69 in Manti. He was one of the original creators of customized cars and the creator of the Rat Fink logo.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A21)
2001 May 14, Tom Green (52), a bigamist with 5 wives and 29 children, went on trial in SLC for bigamy. Green was convicted May 18 of 4 counts of bigamy and one count of failure to pay child support. Green was sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to pay $78,000 to the state for fraudulent welfare checks. In 2002 Green was convicted of child rape for impregnating one wife at age 13. Green was released from prison in 2007.
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.A3)(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A7)(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/25/02, p.A2)(SFC, 8/8/07, p.A5)
2001 May 19, In Utah it was reported that Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex) had reproduced into the worst infestation since the early 1970s. The infestation grew to be the worst since the 1940s. Grasshoppers devoured an additional 600,000 acres of vegetation.
(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/23/01, p.C8)
2001 Sep 13, In Utah Amtrak’s California Zephyr train crashed into a freight train near the Nevada border. 6 people were injured.
(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A23)
2001 Nov 14, Dennis Peron, California’s godfather of medical marijuana, was arrested in Cedar City, for smoking a joint in his hotel room. Police found nearly a pound of marijuana. Peron said he would fight to change the state law.
(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A23)
2001 Dec 11, 69 airport workers in SLC were charged with falsifying job and security applications.
(WSJ, 12/12/01, p.A1)
2001 The 775-room Grand America Hotel, owned by billionaire Earl Holding (74), was completed after 5 years of construction.
(WSJ, 1/10/02, p.A1)
2001 The 122,000 sq.-foot North American Museum of Ancient Life (NAMAL) opened in Lehi, south of SLC.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
2001 A dinosaur site was discovered in south central Utah near the town of Green River.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A2)
2002 Feb 8, Pres. Bush opened the 19th Winter Olympic Games as part of a 3-hour ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the Univ. of Utah campus, which included an emotional tribute to America's heroes, from the pioneers of the West to past Olympic champions to the thousands who perished on Sept. 11, 2001.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/8/03)
2002 Feb 11, Gold medals for the Olympics free-style skating event went to Russians Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya. French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne later admitted to being pressured to support the Russian team. On Feb 15 Olympic officials awarded a 2nd gold medal to Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale for their performance.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 13, In a startling development at the Salt Lake City winter games, the head of the French Olympic team said the French figure skating judge had been pressured to "act in a certain way" before she voted to give the gold medal to the Russians in pairs.
(AP, 2/13/03)
2002 Feb 19, In Salt Lake City, a win by bobsledders Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers gave the United States 21 medals in the Winter Games; Flowers became the first black athlete ever to strike gold at the Winter Olympics.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2002 Feb 20, At the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Jim Shea won the men's skeleton race, finishing the two runs at Utah Olympic Park in one minute, 41.96 seconds. The victory was the culmination of an emotional two months for Shea, whose 91-year-old grandfather, Olympic gold medal speedskater Jack Shea, died four weeks earlier. American speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno won the 1,500 meters after South Korean Kim Dong-sung, who had crossed the finish line ahead of him, was disqualified.
(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/20/07)
2002 Feb 21, In Salt Lake City Sarah Hughes (16) of Great neck, NY, won 1st place in the Olympics women’s free skate competition, leaving teammate Michelle Kwan to settle for a bronze.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/21/07)
2002 Feb 24, The XIX Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City came to a close. In one of the last events Canada beat the US hockey team 5-2 for the gold. Cross-country skiers from Spain and Russia were stripped of gold medals for failing drug tests.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 5, Elizabeth Ann Smart (14) was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Salt Lake City. She was found Mar 12, 2003, with kidnapper Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Eileen Barzee. In 2005 a judge found Mitchell mentally incompetent to stand trial. In 2009 Barzee (64) pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She also agreed to testify against her husband. In 2010 a federal jury found Mitchell guilty of kidnapping and forcing sex on her for 9 months. On May 25, 2011, a federal judge sentenced Brian David Mitchell to life in prison. Barzee was scheduled to be freed on Sept. 19, 2018.
(SFC, 6/7/02, p.A3)(SFC, 3/13/03, p.1)(SFC, 7/27/05, p.A3)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.A7)(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(SFC, 5/26/11, p.A11)(SFC, 9/12/18, p.A5)
2002 Jul 31, US court papers alleged that Russia's Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (53) used his influence with members of the Russian and French skating federations to fix the outcome of the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics last February. Tokhtakhounov was arrested in Italy. Italy’s highest court denounced an extradition bid and freed Tokhtakhounov.
(Reuters, 7/31/02)(SFC, 8/1/02, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alimzhan_Tokhtakhounov)
2002 Oct 25, In Utah 2 F-16 fighter jets collided during training and 1 pilot survived. The 2nd pilot’s body was found Oct 26.
(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A5)(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.A20)
2002 Nov 3, Kit Armstrong (10), pianist and sophomore at a Utah college, performed before a sold out audience at Stanford’s dinkelspiel Auditorium.
(SFC, 11/4/02, p.D1)
2002 In Utah Waldo Wilcox deeded his Range Creek Canyon lands to the public for $2.5 million as part of a conservation deal. He had sold the property to the Trust for Public Land in 2001 for $2.5 million.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)(Sm, 3/06, p.70)
2003 Jan 25, The Sundance Film Festival in Utah gave the grand jury prize to “American Splendor" and the documentary grand prize to “Capturing the Friedmans." The audience award went to “The Station Agent."
(SSFC, 1/26/03, p.A2)
2003 Jan 29, Frank Moss (b.1911), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), died. His efforts included the addition of Capitol Reef and Canyonlands to the national park system.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
2003 Feb 5, It was reported that genealogical research in Utah identified a gene that causes depression.
(WSJ, 2/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 12, Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who'd vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters.
(AP, 3/12/04)
2003 Mar 18, In Salt Lake City, Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were charged with aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary in the abduction of Elizabeth Ann Smart, who was found with them six days earlier.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2003 May 1, In Utah climber Aron Ralston (27) amputated his own arm to escape from a canyon where he was pinned by a boulder.
(SFC, 5/2/03, p.A18)
2003 Aug 11, Pres. Bush named Mike Leavitt, Republican governor of Utah, to head the EPA.
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 28, The US Senate approved Utah's Gov. Mike Leavitt as head of the EPA.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 5, A federal judge in Utah threw out the case against two civic leaders accused of bribery in their efforts to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2003 Dec 26, An avalanche in Provo Canyon, Utah, left 3 snowboarders dead.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 28, A motorhome carrying 10 people went off I-15 near SLC, Utah, and 5 people were killed including 4 children.
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A3)
2003 An oil field, estimated at a billion barrels, was discovered in Utah’s Sevier County.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.27)
2004 Jan 19, Gov. Walker expressed optimism in Utah's economy. She submitted an $8 billion budget that included 3.4% increased spending.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2004 Jul 19, Lori Hacking (27) of Salt Lake City, Utah, went missing. Her husband Mark (28) said she failed to return from a jog. She was reportedly five weeks pregnant. Police found her husband Mark Hacking running naked around a motel not far from his home the next day. He was put into a psychiatric hospital after police found him. Police arrested Hacking on Aug 2 and filed 1st degree murder charges on Aug 9. In 2005 Mark Hacking pleaded guilty to her murder. On June 6, 2005, Mark Hacking was sentenced 6 years to life in prison, the maximum the judge could give under Utah law. Under Utah's system of indeterminate criminal sentences.
(SFC, 8/2/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/3/04, p.A2)(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A4)(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)
2004 Aug 2, Police in Salt Lake City arrested Mark Hacking, whose wife, Lori, had disappeared, on a charge of aggravated murder. On October 1, 2004, searchers found human remains in the Salt Lake County landfill. By that afternoon police had confirmed that the remains were those of Lori Hacking. Lori Kay Soares was buried in Orem City Cemetery, Orem, Utah County, Utah. The dates on her stone are December 31, 1976 to July 19, 2004.
(AP, 8/2/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Hacking)
2004 Oct 1, The Utah state medical examiner's office used dental records to identify Lori Hacking's remains about six hours after they were discovered in a landfill.
(AP, 10/2/04)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.A2)
2004 Nov 2, Jon Huntsman (R) was elected governor of Utah.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.A18)
2004 Nov 2, Some 66% of Utah voters approved Amendment 3 to the state constitution and in effect banned same-sex marriage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Constitutional_Amendment_3)
2004 The Utah Legislature passed a law requiring the Univ. of Utah to lift a ban against students and employees carrying firearms.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Utah banned execution by firing squad. This did not apply to past cases and a man was executed by firing squad in 2010.
(Econ., 3/21/15, p.23)
2005 Jan 14, In Park City, Utah, 5 people were feared buried by a massive avalanche.
(AP, 1/15/05)
2005 May 2, Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman signed a measure defying the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act despite a warning from the federal education secretary that it could cost $76 million in federal aid. The legislation gives Utah's education standards priority over federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 5, It was reported that Wolverine Gas & Oil of Grand Rapids, Mich., had snapped up leasing rights to a half-million acres in central Utah and estimated yields up to a billion or more barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.C3)
2006 Jan 15, The NASA space capsule, Stardust, returned safely to Earth in a desert near Salt Lake City with the first dust ever fetched from a comet, a cosmic bounty that scientists hope will yield clues to how the solar system formed.
(http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/er.html)(AP, 1/15/06)
2006 Feb 24, Judge Walter Steed, a small-town judge with three wives, was ordered removed from the bench by the Utah Supreme Court for violating the state's bigamy law.
(AP, 2/24/06)
2006 Jun 5, More than 50 National Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the US-Mexico border as part of President Bush's crackdown on illegal immigration.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2006 Jul 24, Police officers in Salt Lake City found the body of missing 5-year-old Destiny Norton in the basement of a home in her neighborhood and arrested Craig R. Gregerson (20) who lived there. Destiny disappeared from outside her house on July 16.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Aug 7, Utah doctors successfully separated conjoined twins Kendra and Maliyah Herrin. The 4-year-old sisters had been born fused at the midsection with just one kidney and one set of legs. Reconstruction surgery continued.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 29, Warren Steed Jeffs (50), a fugitive polygamist, was arrested in Nevada. He was on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list for sex crimes in Utah and Arizona. Jeffs ruled the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) since his father died in 2002. The sect had broken from the Mormon Church over a century ago.
(SFC, 8/30/06, p.A11)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.34)
2006 Sep 20, In Salt Lake City a 2-year-old boy died from kidney failure due to an E. coli infection attributed to spinach.
(SFC, 10/6/06, p.A3)
2007 Jan 27, Sundance Film Festival's grand-jury prize for best US drama went to "Padre Nuestro," an immigrant saga about a Mexican teen's heartbreaking search for his father in America.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Salt Lake City, Utah, Sulejmen Talovic (18) opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others before police fatally shot him at the Trolley Square shopping mall. Talovic was armed with several rounds of ammunition and carried two guns. Ken Hammond, an off-duty officer, cornered Talovic and prevented further loss of life.
(AP, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 4, Jon and Karen Huntsman, the billionaire parents of Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman, announced that they would pay $1 million for a public education campaign in Utah about the risks of cervical cancer and a new vaccine that can prevent it.
(SFC, 4/5/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 11, In Utah Michelle MacNeill (50) died following cosmetic surgery. In 2013 her husband, Dr. Martin MacNeill (57), was convicted of knocking her out with drugs and leaving her to die in a tub.
(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/knf5ao3)
2007 Jun 18, In Utah an 11-year-old boy was dragged from a tent and killed by a black bear in American Fork Canyon.
(SFC, 6/19/07, p.A2)
2007 Jun 25, In Utah police recaptured Curtis Allgier (27) after he wrested a gun from a corrections officer Stephen Anderson, killed him and fled in a stolen SUV.
(SFC, 6/26/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 1, In northeastern Utah a wildfire burned 46 square miles and killed 3 people working in a hayfield.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.A7)
2007 Jul 7, Wildfires in California consumed 17,000 acres in Inyo National Forest and 7,500 acres in Los Padres National Forest. An 8,000-acre wildfire forced hundreds of people in the town of Winnemucca to leave their homes, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada. In Utah a 160,000-acre wildfire forced evacuations at Cove Fort and the Blundell Geothermal Power Plant. Wildfires also burned in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington states.
(AP, 7/8/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Jul 23, A wildfire in southern Idaho had covered more than 880 square miles, growing by about 200 square miles in just 24 hours during the weekend. Fire officials said it threatened tracking and radar facilities at Mountain Home Air Force bombing and firing range, which is used by pilots training for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Firefighters in central Utah faced a threat of strong wind gusts as they battled a huge wildfire, where several small communities were evacuated.
(AP, 7/23/07)(SFC, 7/23/07, p.A5)
2007 Aug 6, In Utah 6 coal miners were trapped by a cave-in more than 1,500 feet below the surface at the Crandall Canyon Mine.
(AP, 8/7/07)(SFC, 8/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 16, In Utah the search for six miners missing deep underground was abruptly halted after a second cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach them. The search for six trapped miners at the Crandall Canyon Mine was later abandoned. In 2012 mine operator Genwal Resources Inc. agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor criminal charges and pay a $500,000 fine.
(AP, 8/17/07)(AP, 8/16/08)(SFC, 3/10/12, p.A6)
2007 Sep 9, In Utah searchers found the body of Camille Cleverley (22) at the base of a cliff near Bridal Veil Falls in Provo. The Brigham Young Univ. student had been missing for over a week.
(SFC, 9/10/07, p.A4)
2007 Sep 25, Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group, was convicted in St. George, Utah, of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. Jeffs was later sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2007 Nov 6, George Osmond (90), father of Donny and Marie Osmond and patriarch to the family's singing group The Osmond Brothers, died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2007 Nov 20, In Utah polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, self-proclaimed prophet of a breakaway Mormon sect, was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a 14-year-old to marry her first cousin. In 2010 the Utah Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Jeffs and ordered a new trial saying a jury received incorrect instructions. On April 7, 2011, a federal judge handed control of a $114 million communal land trust back to the leaders of Jeff’s polygamous church. Courts had seized control of the trust in 2005.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC, 4/9/11, p.A5)
2008 Jan 6, In southeastern Utah a chartered bus ran off a wet road and rolled 41 feet down an embankment, killing eight passengers who were returning home from a ski trip. About 20 others were injured.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 19, James Levoy Sorenson (b.1921), medical device inventor and Utah real estate investor, died. He amassed over 40 medical patents and introduced the disposable paper surgical mask.
(WSJ, 1/26/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 26, The film “Frozen River," directed by Courtney Hunt, won first prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. “Trouble the Water" won as best US documentary film. “The Wackness" won the audience award.
(SSFC, 1/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Jan 26, It was reported that some 15,000 birds had died over the last month around Utah’s Great Salt Lake due to avian cholera, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida. The disease was introduced into the wild during the 1940s from US domestic poultry.
(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B6)
2008 Jan 27, Gordon B. Hinckley (b.1910), the humble head of the Mormon church, died in Salt Lake City. He added millions of new members and labored long to burnish the faith's image as a world religion.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Feb 4, In Utah Thomas S. Monson (80) was introduced as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had become known for his folksy storytelling as he ascended through church ranks.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Jun 16, In Utah the Bureau of Land Management announced a dinosaur find, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery." An excavation revealed at least four plant-eating dinosaurs and two carnivorous ones dating back to about 150 million BC.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Aug, Utah began a trial 4-day work week for about 17,000 of the state's 24,000 executive-branch employees. Closing state offices on Fridays was supposed to cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions. The program led to an increase in volunteer activities. In Sep, 2011, the 4-day week program ended after less money was saved than hoped. Residents has also complained about not having access to services on Fridays.
(AP, 7/11/09)(http://tinyurl.com/3ks2a9b)
2008 Aug 23, In Utah a small plane crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Canyonlands Field airport. All 10 aboard, including 9 employees of a Cedar City dermatology company, who traveled to remote areas to provide medical treatments.
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 24, In Guatemala a Cessna Caravan carrying humanitarian workers crashed about 60 miles east of Guatemala City killing 10 people, including five Americans. At least 2 people survived. The plane was headed to a village in the area of El Estor to build homes for CHOICE Humanitarian, a group based in West Jordan, Utah.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Sep 26, The Utah legislature addressed a $354 million budget deficit in a 2-day special session, primarily through a three percent across-the-board cut in state agency spending, while preserving a $500 million reserve fund to address a potential future shortfall.
(www.statescape.com/SessionUpdates/SessionUpdates.asp)
2008 In Utah scientists discovered the fossils of a predator dinosaur that lived about 100 million years ago. In 2013 it was named Siats meekerorum, and said to be related to allosauroids.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
2009 Feb 10, The Utah state Department of Agriculture said Africanized honey bees have been found for the first time in the Beehive State. The bees, long the subject of lore as "killer bees," were recently discovered in Utah's Washington and Kane counties.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Feb 25, US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar scrapped leases, created under the Bush administration, on federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb 25, The US Supreme Court ruled that the Summum group does not have a right to erect the “Seven aphorism" of its beliefs in Pleasant Gove City, Utah, park just because the Ten Commandments are displayed there.
(SFC, 2/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 9, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and state house and senate leaders agreed to eliminate the state’s 40-year-old private club system in an effort to boost tourism.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 17, In Utah Chiew Chan Saevang (37), a suspected opium trafficker, killed himself and his girlfriend, Yer Yang (40), after sheriff’s deputies chased them down on a state highway. Saevang was also wanted in the March 12 slaying of four Conover, NC, family members.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.A5)
2009 May 12, In Utah partitions known as “Zion curtains" began coming down as a new law came into effect allowing bartenders to serve patrons directly over the bar. This ended Utah’s requirement that people who wanted a drink join a “private club."
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A8)(Economist, 9/8/12, p.66)
2009 May 16, President Barack Obama reached across the political divide and named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2012, to the sensitive diplomatic post of US ambassador to China.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 Jun 22, US pilot Capt. George B. Houghton (28), of Candler, NC, died in an F-16 crash at the Utah Test and Training Range near the Nevada-Utah state line.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that a grasshopper invasion was under way in Utah. This year's invasion in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City was worse than anyone can remember.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 1, Utah ditched a 40-year-old requirement for bar customers to fill out applications and pay a fee to become a member of a private club before entering a bar.
(SFC, 7/2/09, p.A5)
2009 Sep 10, NASA made a successful first test of its Ares I rocket at promontory, Utah. It was created as part of a plan to return to the moon, but a recent panel said there isn’t enough money for the moon project.
(SFC, 9/11/09, p.A13)
2009 Sep 18, It was reported that some 20-50 thousands birds have died along the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake so far this year from avian botulism.
(SFC, 9/18/09, p.A21)
2009 Nov 10, Utah’s Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake city laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Dec 7, In Utah Susan Powell (28) was last seen at her West Valley City home as her husband, Josh Powell, took their two boys (ages 2 and 4) on a camping trip. Powell later claimed she ran off with another man. In 2012 authorities found her blood in the family home and a hand-written note expressing fear about her husband.
(SSFC, 12/27/09, p.A10)(SFC, 9/19/11, p.A4)(SFC, 3/31/12, p.A5)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 A team led by Neal Patwari and Joey Wilson of the Univ. of Utah came up with a way to peer through the walls of a building using a network of low cost little radios, which are used to look for motion as their signals are blocked by a moving object, such as a person.
(Econ, 10/17/09, p.96)
2009 Paleontologists in Utah discovered a site brimming with fossils dating back some 210 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, In Utah deputy sheriff Josie Greathouse Fox was killed following a traffic stop in Delta. Police searched for suspect Roberto Miramontes Roman, who had just sold drugs to a relative of the slain officer.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 9, Walter Fredrick Morrison (90), the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, died at his home in Monroe, Utah. Morrison began manufacturing his flying discs in 1948. He sold the production and manufacturing rights to his "Pluto Platter" in 1957. The plastic flying disc was later renamed the "Frisbee," with sales surpassing 200 million discs.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 May 8, In Utah GOP delegates voted to bar Sen. Bob Bennett (76) from seeking a fourth term, making him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this year and demonstrates the challenges candidates face from the right in 2010.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 28, Gary Coleman (b.1968), the child star from television show "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978-1986), died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 Jun 10, A judge in the US District Court for the District of Utah granted Novell's request for declaratory judgment and ruled against SCO's claims of slander and breach of implied covenant of good faith. He also said that SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and other companies that use Linux. He ordered the case closed.
(PCWorld, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 11, In Salt Lake City an underground pipeline broke sending oil into a creek that ultimately flows into the Great Salt Lake. The pipeline was shut off the next day as the 21,000 gallon spill coated some 300 birds at area creeks. Chevron said it would pay for cleanup.
(SFC, 6/14/10, p.A6)
2010 Jun 18, In Utah death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner (49), who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men, suffered the same fate as he was executed by a team of marksmen, the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years.
(AP, 6/18/10)
2010 Jun 26, In Utah 5 young people from Ogden, aged 16-22, were killed as they tried to pass another vehicle while returning from a camping trip.
(SSFC, 6/27/10, p.A8)
2010 Jul 12, In Utah a list of over 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants living in the state was received by law enforcement and politicians around the state. On Jul 16 the ACLU of Utah commended the swift action of Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in responding to the legitimate public outcry and widespread demand that they investigate the extraordinary breach of privacy by state employees, which became publicly known earlier this week. 2 women, working for the state’s main welfare agency, had recently sent the stolen names, addresses, Social Security numbers - and even the due dates of expectant mothers - of some 1,300 mostly Latino people whom they suspected of being in the state illegally, to newspapers along with a letter urging their immediate deportation.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vjl89x0)(Econ, 8/7/10, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/334kjoh)
2010 Aug 9, In USA a tour bus crash killed 3 Japanese tourists. Driver Yasushi Mikuni (26) was later charged with 10 felony counts of negligent driving and one misdemeanor charge of having marijuana residue in his system.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Aug 27, Scott Curley (23) shot and killed Utah Kane county Deputy Brian Harris (41) following an attempted robbery. Harris was shot near Fredonia, just south of the Utah border. Curley escaped into the desert area along the Utah-Arizona border. Curley was captured on Aug 30 in Kanab, Utah.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 19, The Utah Army National Guard ignited a fire at Camp Williams, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, while practicing with a .50 caliber machine gun. At least 3 homes were destroyed as the fire went out of control.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 9, In southern Utah a small plane crashed and killed 2 National park Service law enforcement agents in the Dixie National Forest.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2011 Feb 10, In Utah first-degree felony count of sodomy on a child and two second-degree felony counts of sexual abuse of a child were filed against Keith Brown (55), father of the 5 Browns classical piano group. The Brown children severed their professional relationship with their father in October of 2008.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Apr 29, The state of Utah filed a lawsuit against the federal government over an Obama administration plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Jun 14, Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, announced that he will be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Huntsman, considered a moderate, served as President Obama’s ambassador to China before resigning a month ago, in preparation for his presidential run.
(AP, 6/14/11)
2011 Aug 30, The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced that they had arrested 7 men in Utah, alleged members of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. Cashes of guns, cash and drugs were seized.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.40)
2011 Sep 10, In Utah Alexis Rasmussen (16) went missing in North Ogden. She had been babysitting for Eric and Dea Millerburg, who have since been arrested on drug-related charges. Rasmussen’s body was found on Oct 18 in a shallow grave in North Ogden.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/3lsozqn)
2011 Sep 24, In Utah thousands of people stripped to their underwear and ran through Salt Lake City to protest what they called the "uptight" laws of Utah. Guiness World Records later said 2,270 people participated breaking a previous record of 550 set last year in Great Britain.
(AP, 9/25/11)(SFC, 10/7/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 27, In Utah Uta von Schwedler (49) was found dead in her bathtub in Salt Lake City. On March 12, 2015 her ex-husband, pediatrician John Brickman Wall (51), was convicted of her murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/poayapn)(SFC, 3/14/15, p.A7)
2011 Dec 12, In Utah some 4000-5000 migratory birds, eared grebes, were killed or injured after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot, football fields and other snow-covered areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one state wildlife expert called the worst mass bird crash she'd ever seen. A high-profile crash in Arkansas in January killed about 4,500 birds, mainly red-winged blackbirds.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 19, Fierce winds and snow that caused fatal road accidents and shuttered highways in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The storm was blamed for at least six deaths.
(AP, 12/20/11)
2011 Dec 28, Two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions were arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder. Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody and held in the Camden County jail. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City. Each was awaiting an extradition hearing.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2012 Jan 4, In Utah Army veteran Matthew David Stewart killed a police officer and wounded 5 others as authorities descended on his home in a marijuana raid.
(http://tinyurl.com/paqc29c)(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2012 Jan 18, The US Army Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah burned its last hard weapons containing mustard gas. This marked the destruction of about 90% of its aging chemical weapons, accumulated during the Cold War.
(SFC, 1/19/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 19, Top Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke (29), an early gold medal favorite ahead of the 2014 Olympics, died at a Utah hospital from injuries she suffered in a training fall.
(Reuters, 1/19/12)
2012 Feb 5, Josh Powell, under investigation for the 2009 disappearance in Utah of his wife, Susan Powell, was killed with his two sons, Charles (7) and Braden (5), in a fire at his home in Graham, Washington. Police said he set the fire intentionally just after receiving his sons for what was to be a supervised visit.
(SFC, 2/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Mar 23, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill demanding that the federal government relinquish control of public lands in the state by 2014.
(SFC, 3/24/12, p.A7)
2012 May 26, In southern Utah a small Cessna plane was found crashed some 300 feet from the runway of the municipal airport at St. George. 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 5/28/12, p.A8)
2012 Jun 3, A Lockheed P2V aerial firefighter crashed in Utah killing 2 pilots. Another P2V, fighting a wildfire south of Reno, crash-landed at Minden-Tahoe Airport.
(SFC, 6/4/12, p.A8)
2012 Jul 13, Colorado police found the body of Christina Cornejo (30) in Colorado Springs. She had been stabbed multiple times. On July 17 Suspect and boyfriend Brian Hedglin (40) was found dead having shot himself in the head after he crashed a plane at Utah’s St. George Municipal Airport.
(SFC, 7/18/12, p.A8)
2012 Jul 16, Stephen R. Covey (79), Utah-based motivational speaker and author of the best-selling "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" (1989), died in Idaho Falls.
(AP, 7/16/12)(Econ, 7/21/12, p.58)
2012 In Utah the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints clarified that church health practices do not prevent members from drinking caffeinated soft drinks.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
2013 Jan 12, Three men from Utah died when their plane went down near Paris, Texas.
(SFC, 1/14/13, p.A5)
2013 Mar 18, In Utah Willard Bay State Park officials closed down the facility on the northeastern edge of the Great Salt Lake and evacuated two campers and the park manager’s family after around 4,200 to 6,300 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the pipeline just north of the park.
(www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56030315-78/bay-lake-spill-salt.html.csp)
2013 Apr 2, In Utah survivalist Troy James Knapp (45) was arrested after eluded authorities for 6 years. He had moved from cabin to cabin across the Utah mountains, taking food and weapons and leaving notes to brag about it.
(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 May 4, In Utah soccer referee Ricardo Portillo (46) died following an April 27 assault by teen-age player (17). On May 8 the teen was charged with homicide by assault.
(SFC, 5/9/13, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/cqgz2xl)
2013 May 24, In Utah Army veteran Matthew David Stewart (39) charged with killing a police officer on Jan 4, 2012, was found dead hanging from a bedsheet in his cell in Ogden.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 5, Thomas Momson, head of the Mormon Church, said that worldwide membership in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has reached 15 million.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 11, Two Utah Boy Scout leaders pushed a large rock off a rock formation at Goblin Valley State Park. Glenn Taylor and Dave Hall said it was loose and feared it was dangerous. They soon faced possible criminal charges and were removed from their posts a Boy Scout leaders.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 6, Scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Dec 13, A US federal judge struck down parts of Utah’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional. Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that part of the state law prohibiting cohabitation violated the First amendment. He left standing the state’s ability to prohibit multiple marriages.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 20, A US federal judge scrapped Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. The ban was approved by 66% of state voters in 2004.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 24, A US federal appeals court ruled that same-sex marriages can continue in Utah, denying a request from the state to halt them.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2014 Jan 8, The Utah governor’s office said that the state will not recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages performed over the past two weeks as it appeals a legal ruling that had overturned the state’s ban on such unions.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 10, The US Justice Dept. said it would recognize as lawful the marriages of 1,300 same-sex couple in Utah, even though the state is largely refusing to do so.
(SFC, 1/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Jan 16, In Utah 5 people were found dead after co-workers reported that police officer Joshua Boren (34) failed to show up for his shift at the Lindon Police Dept. Boren had shot and killed his wife, mother-in-law and two children before killing himself. Kelly Boren had just confronted her husband about raping her and told him their marriage was over.
(SFC, 1/18/14, p.A4)(AP, 7/8/14)
2014 Jan 25, In Utah some 4,000 protesters gathered in Salt lake City to protests against poor air quality.
(Econ, 2/1/14, p.24)
2014 Jan 30, In Utah Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui (27) shot and killed Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride following a 50-mile chase near Eagle Mountain. A 2nd deputy was wounded. Garcia was also wounded and died the next day. Garcia’s girlfriend Meagan Grunwald (17) survived the shootout and faced nearly a dozen charges in the crime rampage. In April she pleaded innocent to all charges. On May 9, 2015, Grunwald was convicted and faced up to life in prison.
(SFC, 2/1/14, p.A6)(SFC, 5/13/14, p.A5)(AP, 5/9/15)
2014 Mar 25, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law that allows parents of children with severe epilepsy to obtain marijuana extract to help with seizures.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 10, In Utah Iron County workers accompanied by a US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staffer set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until they can be moved to BLM facilities for adoption. Cattle ranchers blamed the protected wild horses for destroying vegetation crucial to ranchers who pay to graze their cattle on the land.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 13, In Utah Megan Huntsman (39) was arrested after police reported tiny bodies stuffed into separate cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home in Pleasant Grove. She had 7 babies between 1996 and 2006. Estranged husband Darren West discovered the bodies a day earlier while cleaning out the garage. On April 28 she was charged with 6 counts of 1st degree murder. On April 20, 2015, Huntsman was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/14/14, p.A8)(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)(SFC, 4/21/15, p.A5)
2014 May 16, In Utah 4 undocumented immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador were killed when a crowded van crashed on Interstate 70. Agents detained three of four men who survived the crash and continued to search for a woman who fled the scene.
(AP, 5/21/14)
2014 Jun 5, Utah’s Wildlife Board voted 3-2 to hold its first ever crow hunt this fall as authorities try to contain the noise and mess from a population of the big, black birds that officials say has tripled over the last 12 years. Crows are protected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, but about 45 states allow them to be hunted.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Utah John Swallow (51) and Mark Shurtleff (56), both former state attorneys general, were arrested on a battery of bribery charges.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 11, Utah police in Saratoga Springs shot and killed Darrien Hunt (22), an African American, as he ran away after swinging a samurai-style sword that was part of his Japanese anime costume.
(SFC, 10/30/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 19, A Utah state judge sentenced Martin MacNeill (58), a former doctor, to serve at least 17 years in prison on chrages related to the 2007 death of his wife.
(SFC, 9/20/14, p.A10)
2014 Sep 27, In Utah the bodies of two parents and three of their children were found in a home in Springfield. Cause of death was yet unknown.
(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 29, In Utah former FBI agent Robert Lustyik Jr. (52) pleaded guilty to charges that he derailed an investigation into military contract fraud by making a suspect appear to be a key counterintelligence source.
(AFP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 4, In Utah the Mormon church opened its biannual conference bringing some 100,000 church members to Salt Lake City to listen to words of guidance and inspiration from the faith's leaders. Residents from 64 countries were expected during the two-day conference.
(AP, 10/4/14)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2014 Dec 16, Lena Jacobs Coombs (48), Utah-based former marketing director for Symantec, an anti-virus software maker, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $1 million to fund personal expenses and vacations. On April 22, 2015, Coombs was sentenced to three years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $915,412 in restitution.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.C5)(SFC, 4/24/15, p.C3)
2014 Nikola Motor Company was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, to make electric and hydrogen powered cars. The company went public in June, 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Corporation)(Econ., 9/19/20, p.60)
2015 Feb 10, John Dehlin (45), a Mormon who gained notoriety over the past decade for running a website that offers doubting Latter-day Saints a forum to chat, announced that Utah church leaders have kicked him out of the faith for apostasy.
(SFC, 2/11/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 10, Utah’s legislature passed a law to bring back guns for executing those on death row.
(Econ., 3/21/15, p.23)
2015 Mar 23, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert gave his stamp of approval to a law that brings back the firing squad in the only state that has used it in the past 40 years.
(AP, 3/24/15)
2015 Mar 24, Google announced that it would be bringing Google Fiber to Salt Lake City, which actually will make it the second city in Utah to have access to the service. Google first announced it was bringing Fiber to Provo, Utah back in 2013.
(BGR News, 3/25/15)
2015 Jul 1, Episcopalians, meeting in Salt Lake at the Episcopal General Convention, voted to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples.
(SFC, 7/2/15, p.A7)
2015 Sep 15, In Utah 12 people were killed after flash floods struck the town of Hildale overnight. Another 7 people were killed in nearby Zion national Park.
(AFP, 9/15/15)(SFC, 9/16/15, p.A7)(SFC, 9/18/15, p.A6)
2016 Jan 20, Federal lawyers made opening statements in a case targeting the polygamous towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, where the dominant religion is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(SFC, 1/21/16, p.A12)
2016 Mar 28, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed legislation requiring doctors to give anesthesia to women having an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, based on the premise that a fetus can feel pain at that point.
(SFC, 3/29/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 19, The US attorney’s office issued a warrant for polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs, who fled home confinement in Salt Lake City pending trial on charges in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme.
(SFC, 6/21/16, p.A6)
2016 Jun, In Utah an elderly man infected with the Zika virus died late this month. He was the first Zika-infected person to die in the continental US. A relative who cared for the man was soon diagnosed with the virus.
(SFC, 7/19/16, p.A4)
2016 Sep, In Utah a new Salt Lake City atheist group, the Sunday Assembly, began offering non-believers a church-like service that offers music, readings and community for those who don't belong to the state's dominant religion, Mormonism, or other faith groups. There's now more than 70 Sunday Assemblies in the US and around the world.
(AP, 12/26/16)
2016 Nov 18, In Utah an air ambulance crashed late today in Elko, killing all three crew members and a patient aboard.
(SSFC, 11/20/16, p.A10)
2016 Dec 20, Utah’s Deseret News reported that federal agents last week arrested two Utah sisters accused of using their money order businesses in the Salt Lake City area to launder an estimated $1 million for Mexican drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/20/16)
2016 Dec 28, Pres. Obama designated two new national monuments. The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah encompassed 300,000 acres. Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada protected 1.35 million acres.
(SFC, 12/29/16, p.A5)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.27)
2017 Jan 13, The US Environmental Protection Agency denied $1.2 billion in claims for economic losses stemming from a 2015 toxic wastewater spill accidentally triggered by the agency at a defunct Colorado mine, that fouled waterways in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
(AP, 1/13/17)
2017 Mar 21, A legal officer at Cambodia's Customs Department said Cambodia has suspended the export of human breast milk by Utah-based Ambrosia Labs Ltd., a business pioneered last year by former Mormon missionary Ryan Newell. On March 28 the ban was made permanent.
(AP, 3/21/17)(AP, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 23, Utah’s Rep. Gov. Gary Herbert said he plans to approve a measure lowering the state’s blood alcohol limit to .05% from .08%.
(SFC, 3/24/17, p.A6)
2017 Sep 21, In Utah Brigham Young Univ., owned by the Mormon church, ended a six-decade ban on caffeinated soft drinks on campus.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
2017 Oct 10, Utah police Officer Jeff Payne was fired after being seen on video roughly handcuffing Nurse Alex Wubbels and dragging her from a hospital because she refused to allow a blood draw per hospital policy. Nurse Wubbels later reached a $500,000 settlement with Salt Lake City and the university that runs the hospital.
(SFC, 10/11/17, p.A7)(SFC, 11/1/17, p.A5)
2017 Oct 27, US Pres. Donald Trump said he is approving the recommendation of Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments in Utah along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.
(SFC, 10/28/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 30, In Utah Chinese student Chen Wei Guo was killed in a fatal carjacking near the Univ. of Utah late today, causing a campus-wide lockdown as police continue to search for suspected gunman Austin Boutain (24).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump visited Utah to announce big cuts to the state's sprawling wilderness national monuments. Bears Ears National Monument will shrink to 220,000 acres from 1.35 million, and Grand Staircase Escalante will be cut to about half its current size. The move triggered legal challenges from tribes and environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2018 Jan 16, In Utah the Mormon church appointed Russell Nelson (93), a former heart surgeon, as its new president.
(SFC, 1/17/18, p.A4)
2018 Mar 1, Canadian outdoor outfitter Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) said it will stop selling outdoor sports items made by brands owned by Utah-based Vista Outdoor that also sells assault-style rifles.
(AFP, 3/1/18)
2018 Mar 20, The US Department of Interior auctioned off more than 51,000 acres (21,000 hectares) in southeastern Utah for oil and gas development, over objections from conservationists.
(Reuters, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 31, Utah's Mormon church made history and brought diversity to its leadership panel by selecting its first Latin American apostle and first apostle of Asian ancestry to help set church policy and oversee the faith's business interests.
(SSFC, 4/1/18, p.A8)
2018 May 11, In Utah a Tesla sedan rear-ended a Fire Dept. truck in South Jordan without breaking before impact. It was unclear if the car's autopilot feature was engaged.
(SFC, 5/14/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 20, In Utah 10-month-old Alex Hidalgo Jr. was stabbed multiple times and found covered in blood in a garbage can. Alex Hidalgo (37) of Ogden was arrested the next day and charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice.
(SFC, 7/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 13, In Utah Duane Youd flew a small plane into his own house hours after being arrested and released on bail for assaulting his wife. Youd died in the crash, but his wife and child survived.
(SFC, 8/14/18, p.A5)
2018 Sep 19, In Utah Wanda Barzee (72), the woman who helped kidnap Elizabeth Smart (14) in 2002 and stood by as the girl was sexually assaulted by her then husband Brian David Mitchell, was released after serving 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 9/20/18, p.A4)
2018 Oct 4, In Utah the Mormon church joined lawmakers, the governor and advocates to back a deal that would legalize medical marijuana in the state.
(SFC, 10/5/18, p.A7)
2018 Oct 22, In Utah a dump truck crossed a highway median near Heber and collided with an oncoming pickup truck, killing all six men in the pickup. Jamie Don McKenzie (41), the driver of the truck, was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. Prescription pills and open containers of alcohol were found inside the truck.
(SFC, 10/22/18, p.A6)
2018 Nov 3, In Afghanistan Maj. Brent Taylor (39) was fatally shot by one of his Afghan trainees in Kabul. Another US military member was wounded. Initial reports indicated the attacker was immediately killed by other Afghan Forces. In 2020 an Army report said Afghan commando Sgt. Asfar Khan (20) had planned the killing for weeks. Taylor was the Utah mayor of Ogden serving in the National Guard.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)(AP, 11/5/18)(AP, 6/8/20)
2018 Nov 6, Voters in Utah joined the growing number of US states to legalize medical marijuana.
(SSFC, 11/11/18, p.A8)
2018 Nov 10, In eastern Utah two workers were electrocuted and a third injured when industrial equipment at a potash mine touched a power line near Moab.
(SFC, 11/12/18, p.A5)
2018 Nov 24, In Utah police Officer David Romrell (31) died after he was intentionally struck by a driver while responding to a burglary call in Salt Lake City. Car driver Felix Anthony Calata was fatally shot by police and an accomplice was arrested.
(SFC, 11/26/18, p.A4)
2019 Apr 4, In Utah the Church of the Latter Day Saints repealed rules unveiled in 2015 that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and made gay marriage a sin worthy of expulsion.
(SFC, 4/5/19, p.A5)
2019 Apr 30, Sterling Van Wagenen (71), a filmmaker who co-founded the Sundance Film festival, pleaded guilty in Utah to sexual abuse of a child.
(SFC, 5/1/19, p.A6)
2019 May 8, In Utah the Salt Lake Tribune announced plans to become a nonprofit in an effort to ensure long-term stability.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.A6)
2019 Jun 20, Univ. of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck (23) was reported missing. On June 28 Ayoola Ajayi (31) was arrested by a Salt Lake City SWAT team after burned evidence was found at his home. Lueck's body was found on July 3 in a canyon 80 miles from Salt Lake City. On July 10 Ajayi ws chrged with murder and kidnapping.
(SFC, 6/29/19, p.A6)(SFC, 7/6/19, p.A6)(SFC, 7/11/19, p.A6)
2019 Jun, In Utah investigations began to focus on white supremacist gangs including Soldiers of Aryan Culture, Silent Aryan Warriors and Nobel Elect Thugs, all with roots in the Utah prison system.
(SFC, 10/19/20, p.A4)
2019 Jul 26, The US Bureau of Land Management announced a plan to allow off-road vehicles access to archaeologically sensitive land at Utah's Bears Ears National Monument that houses sacred tribal sites.
(AP, 7/26/19)
2019 Aug 30, Aaron Shamo (29) of Utah was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar opioid ring that sent hundreds of thousands of potentially deadly pills across the country in a scheme that authorities said helped fuel the nation's opioid epidemic. Prosecutors said Shamo bought the powerful opioid fentanyl online from Chinese manufacturers, pressed it into fake oxycodone pills and sold it on the dark web with the help of a handful of friends.
(AP, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 20, In southern Utah a tour bus crashed near Bryce Canyon National Park killing at least four people.
(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A5)
2019 Sep 24, Alex Whipple (22), a Utah man who pleaded guilty to killing and sexually assaulting his niece, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Whipple killed Elizabeth "Lizzy" Shelley (5) on May 25, after his sister let him spend the night at the family home.
(AP, 9/25/19)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 9, It was reported that the assessor of Arizona's Maricopa county has been indicted in an adoption fraud case, accused of arranging for dozens of pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to come to the US to give their children up for adoption. Utah also has charged Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen with 11 felony counts, including human smuggling, sale of a child and communications fraud.
(AP, 10/9/19)
2019 Dec 23, The Trump administration said it will allow Medicaid expansion with a work requirement in Utah, a decision that came despite courts taking a dim view of the requirement in other states.
(AP, 12/24/19)
2020 Jan 8, Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky excoriated a briefing from top Trump administration officials on the targeted drone strike that led to the death of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force.
(CBS News, 1/8/20)
2020 Jan 17, In Utah a boy armed with a gun killed three children and a woman inside a home in Grantsville, then accompanied a fifth victim to a hospital, where he was arrested.
(AP, 1/18/20)
2020 Jan 22, Utah became the US 19th state to ban the practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ children.
(SFC, 1/23/20, p.A6)
2020 Jan 27, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told reporters that he thinks new revelations from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton will increase the number of Republican senators who will vote in favor of calling at least Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.
(Reuters, 1/27/20)
2020 Jan 31, Utah Senator Mitt Romney joined fellow moderate Susan Collins as the only ones among the 53 Republican senators in the 100-seat chamber to support voting for witnesses. This left Democrats still short of the US Senate majority required and paving the way for Trump's swift acquittal.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Feb 15, It was reported that the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to fund 11,000 miles (17,703 km) of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to help control wildfires.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Mar 6, Utah confirmed its first coronavirus case.
(Good Morning America, 3/7/20)
2020 Mar 16, In Utah gas station owner Lev Dermen was found guilty by a jury on 10 counts that included money laundering and mail fraud. Dermen and polygamists Jacob and Isiah Kingston had filed false claims for over $1 billion in refundable renewable fuel tax credits. Jacob Kingston testified against Dermen at the trial. The Kingstons and two other family members accepted plea deals this year.
(https://tinyurl.com/cj3r3hm9)(SFC, 6/23/21, p.B3)
2020 Mar 18, A 5.7-magnitude earthquake shook Salt Lake City and its suburbs early today, sending spooked residents fleeing their homes, knocking out power for tens of thousands and closing the city's airport.
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Apr 3, Utah's Zion National Park was closed to the public to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A4)
2020 Apr 28, In Utah a left-leaning nonprofit group filed a price gouging complaint with state regulators, arguing the $40 per pack drug was grossly overpriced. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert had defended the state’s $800,000 purchase of 20,000 packets of hydroxychloroquine compounded with zinc, but later ordered an investigation of a no-bid contract with a local company that had been promoting the drugs.
(AP, 4/28/20)
2020 May 18, The Navajo Nation, spanning across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, reported 69 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 4,071.
(Good Morning America, 5/19/20)
2020 May 23, In Utah police fatally shot Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal (22). Officers fired 34 shots at Palacios-Carbajal, striking him 13 - 15 times, after chasing him while he ran away carrying a gun and repeatedly dropped it and retrieved it.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Bernardo_Palacios-Carbajal)
2020 Jun 9, It was reported that Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted COVID-19 rises of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days.
(Reuters, 6/9/20)
2020 Jul 9, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency late today in response to protests in Salt Lake city that erupted after authorities said a fatal police shooting in May was justified.
(SFC, 7/11/20, p.A3)
2020 Jul 10, The Navajo Nation, spanning parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, began a weekend shutdown as the death from the coronavirus rose to 396 with nearly 8,100 cases.
(SFC, 7/13/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 22, More than 35,000 cases of the coronavirus have been reported in Utah, and over 250 people have died. The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested. Officials said the Salt Lake City area is bucking a surge after the county issued a mandate a month ago for people to wear masks.
(AP, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 25, In Utah three people including a 9-month-old were killed and multiple people injured after a small airplane crashed in West Jordan, a Salt Lake City suburb.
(AP, 7/26/20)
2020 Aug 1, American actor and singer Wilford Brimley (85) died in Utah. He is best known for his roles in the Oscar-winning movie "Cocoon" (1985) and "The Firm" (1993).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilford_Brimley)(AP, 8/2/20)
2020 Sep 22, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said he supports voting to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court, all but ensuring President Donald Trump has the backing to push his choice to confirmation over Democratic objections that it's too close to the November election.
(AP, 9/22/20)
2020 Sep 24, Three US states reported record one-day increases in new COVID-19 cases. Montana reported 330 new coronavirus cases, South Dakota recorded 463 new cases. Utah's governor said the state set a one-day record with 1,198 new cases.
(Reuters, 9/24/20)
2020 Oct 2, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
(AP, 10/2/20)
2020 Oct 7, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala debated in Salt Lake City. Pence and Harris traded barbs through plexiglass shields in a debate dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. Pence echoed many of President Donald Trump’s falsehoods in the one and only debate with Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
(AP, 10/8/20)
2020 Oct 7, In Utah tech worker Ayoola A. Ajayi (32) pleaded guilty to strangling college student Mackenzie Lueck (23), whose disappearance over a year ago sparked a search that ended with the discovery of her charred remains in his backyard.
(NBC News, 10/8/20)
2020 Oct 16, It was reported that federal authorities in Utah have charged 21 white supremacist gang members and associates with distributing drugs and firearms around the state.
(NY Daily News, 10/16/20)
2020 Oct 22, Utah reported a new record number of COVID-19 cases. Gov. Gary Hart again pleaded with people to adhere to mask mandates in place in 21 of the state's 29 counties.
(https://tinyurl.com/yypqx3hx)(SFC, 10/26/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 22, The University of Utah acknowledged for the first time that the 2018 on-campus murder of track star Lauren McCluskey was “preventable" and agreed to pay her family $13.5 million to settle a lawsuit in the case.
(NY Daily News, 10/22/20)
2020 Oct 27, In Utah the 170-year-old Deseret News said it will stop daily publishing starting next year. A day earlier the Salt Lake Tribune made a similar announcement.
(SFC, 10/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Nov 3, Residents of Nebraska and Utah decided to strip their constitutions of unenforceable provisions that allowed slavery as a punishment for criminal convictions.
(AP, 11/8/20)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 8, Utah state Gov. Gary Herbert declared a new state of emergency to address hospital overcrowding in response to weeks of stress on its hospital networks due to a surge of novel coronavirus cases.
(Reuters, 11/8/20)
2020 Nov 18, A Utah Department of Public Safety showed a metal monolith in the ground in a remote area of red rock. It disappeared less than 10 days after it was spotted by wildlife biologists performing a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep.
(AP, 11/29/20)
2020 Dec 18, The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added new language to the faith's handbook imploring members to root out prejudice and racism, adding significance and permanence to recent comments by top leaders on one of the most sensitive topics in the church's history. The faith’s past ban on Black men in the lay priesthood, which stood until 1978, was disavowed in a 2013 essay. The church never issued a formal apology.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 31, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News printed their final daily newspapers as they joined others that made the same decision in response to declining print and circulation revenues. The newspaper had printed daily for 149 years.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2021 Jan 7, PayPal Holdings Inc's venture arm said it has made an investment in Salt Lake City, Utah-based tech startup Taxbit, which helps consumers and businesses calculate the taxes owed on cryptocurrency holdings.
(Reuters, 1/7/21)
2021 Feb 6, In Utah four skiers were killed and four others were rescued near Salt Lake City in the deadliest snowslide in the United States in seven year.
(Reuters, 2/7/21)
2021 Mar 15, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah in a public letter urged American spectators, companies and diplomats to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, to punish China for its human rights abuses. He favored that approach over an athlete boycott.
(NY Times, 3/15/21)
2021 Apr 14, Scorpion, an internet marketing services provider, said has raised $100 million in funds from investment firm Bregal Sagemount to expand its technology and customer offerings. Utah-based Scorpion recently acquired CanlRank, a software company that uses artificial intelligence to provide customers with locally relevant search engine optimization (SEO) insights, for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 4/14/21)
2021 Apr 20, Utah-based IT company Ivanti said in a statement that the hackers in China took advantage of the flaw in its Pulse Connect Secure suite of virtual private networking devices to break into the systems of "a very limited number of customers." A fix for the issue would not be available until early May. It was later reported that dozens of other high-value entities, not yet named, were also targeted as part of the breach of Pulse Secure, which is used by many companies and governments for secure remote access to their networks.
(Reuters, 4/20/21)(AP, 6/14/21)
2021 May 29, In northern Utah one man died and another man suffered severe burns when their single-engine aircraft crashed this morning near the Powder Mountain area near Eden.
(AP, 5/29/21)
2021 Jun 18, The US Southwest baked under an unrelenting heatwave for a fifth day, putting power systems to the test as more records were expected to be broken before a moderating trend sets in next week. The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for five states - California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and part of Colorado.
(Reuters, 6/18/21)
2021 Jun 19, Sazgin Baran Korkmaz, a Turkish businessman, was arrested in Austria by the US Justice Dept. in connection with a biodiesel fraud scheme operated by a Utah business that stole nearly $500 million in government funds. Korkmaz was suspected of laundering over $133 million through bank accoutns he controlled in Turkey and Luxembourg.
(SFC, 6/23/21, p.B3)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Utah
End of file.
Return to home
ALH: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~usalhn/UT.html
Facts: https://www.50states.com/utah.htm
Jell-O is the official state snack and the California seagull is the official state bird.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
Over half of Utah is owned by the federal government.
(Econ., 5/2/15, p.27)
515Mil BC The Burgess Shale, a rock formation amid the glaciated mountains from British Columbia to Utah, created by mud slides that swept shallow water Cambrian creatures over a marine cliff and buried them almost instantly. Specimens include: Pikaia (a chordate, ancestor of fish, reptiles, and mammals), Odontogriphus, Amiskwia, Ottoia (a Priapulid worm), Wiwaxia (a Polychaete worm or mollusk), Burgessochaeta (an annelid worm), Opabinia, Sanctacaris (arthropod, forerunner of spiders and scorpions), Canadaspis (arthropod, early crustacean), Aysheaia (possible arthropod), Eldonia, Hyolith, Brachiopods, Dinomischus, Anomalocaris, Sponges and Trilobites. In 1989 Stephen Jay Gould authored "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History." In 1998 Simon Conway Morris authored "The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals."
(NG, V184, No. 4, Oct. 1993, p.124)(NH, 12/98, p.48)(SFC, 11/5/07, p.A3)
505Mil BC Scientists in 2007 reported that that fossils of tiny jellyfish, most barely a quarter inch in diameter, had been found in the Burgess shale of Utah and dated to this time, when shallow seas covered the area.
(SFC, 11/5/07, p.A3)
c200Mil BC The 3-toed Eubrontes, a 26-foot plant eater, and Dilophosaurus, a 20-foot-long meat-eater, fed along a muddy shoreline in what later became St. George, Utah. Their tracks were found in 2000.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A3)
190Mil BC In 2008 scientists discovered numerous dinosaur footprints dating to this time at the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument along the Utah and Arizona state border.
(SFC, 10/22/08, p.A4)
150Mil BC Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation in Utah has fossils of Diplodocus. Its 28 m length included a 14 m tail and an 8 m neck. It stood 4 m at its hips. Its vertebrae combined struts and hollows making it light and strong. The rear feet had three claws and the front had one. It was a plant-eater and also found near Thermopolis, Wyo.
(TE-JB, p.66)(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T1,5)
150Mil BC In 2008 the Bureau of Land Management in Utah announced a dinosaur find, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery." An excavation revealed at least four plant-eating dinosaurs and two carnivorous ones dating back to about 150 million BC.
(AP, 6/17/08)
125Mil BC The 12-foot dinosaur named Falcarius utahensis of this time was discovered in 2005 in south central Utah near the town of Green River. It was a primitive member of the therizinosaurs found in fossil bed in China.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A2)
125mil BC In 2010 US scientists announced the discovery of a small, feathered raptor-like dinosaur thought to be 125 million years old in eastern Utah. The Geminiraptor suarezarum was bipedal and, like other raptors, had a large head.
(AP, 12/17/10)
100Mil BC Fossils of a predator dinosaur that lived about this time in Utah were discovered in 2008. Scientists in 2013 named it Siats meekerorum, and said it was related to allosauroids.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
c100Mil BC Dinosaurs native to Asia traveled over to North America according to fossil evidence in Utah.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A2)
98.4Mil BC In 1999 it was reported that ankylosaur dinosaur (fused lizards) fossils from this time were found in Utah. Fossils of the nodosaur, a primitive ankylosaur lacking a tail club, were also found.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A2)
98Mil BC In Utah volcanic ash just above a large deposit of fossils was dated to this time.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A9)
80Mil BC In 2013 scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
80Mil BC - 75Mil BC In Utah rocks dating to this period contained burrows fossilized in sandstone. Scientists in 2010 speculated that signs of digging around the burrows were evidence of dinosaurs digging for small mammals.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.66)
76Mil BC The 15-foot dinosaur Nasutoceratops titusi lived about this time. Fossils of the 2.5 ton big-nosed, horned-faced dinosour were discovered in Utah in 2013.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A6)
70Mil BC A dinosaur species, later (2010) named Kosmoceratops (ornate horned-face), thrived in Utah about this time. It had 15 horns decorating its massive head, giving it the most elaborate dinosaur headdress known to science. Another species in Utah from this time, later (2010) named Utahceratops (Utah horned-face), was roughly 20 feet long and weighed 3 to 4 tons.
(http://tinyurl.com/25c48yu)
60Mil BC The Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation in southwest Wyoming represents the remains of an extinct tropical lake community that formed about this time and lasted about 20 million years. It included Fossil lake, Lake Uinta, and Lake Goshuite and covered parts of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.
(NH, 7/98, p.66)
50Mil BC - 42Mil BC The Green River Formation rocks are remnants of an ancient lake that covered more than 25,000 square miles of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Lake Uinta, Lake Gosiute, and Fossil Lake were deposited in this period. The Green River formation is known for deposits such as coal and oil shale, and for limestone containing abundant fish fossils in mass mortality layers. Fossils include the herring-like Knightia alta, and less frequently, other fish such as Priscacara, Mioplosus, Phareodus, and Diplomystus. Rare ancestral manta rays, palm leaves and birds have also been found.
(SFME, 5/7/95, P.5)
40Mil BC A climate change caused the end of the large lake system in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.
(NH, 7/98, p.68)
1Mil BC A Grand Canyon lava dam created a lake larger than Lake Mead and Lake Powell combined. It extended from Toroweap Canyon back through Lake Powell to beyond Moab, Utah-- a distance of more than 400 miles.
(NH, 9/97, p.39)
23000 BC Lake Bonneville crested and covered some 20,000 sq. miles over what is now Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
(NH, 9/96, p.62)
12000BC Lake Lahontan, which spread across northwest Utah, reached its highest level during the last phase of the last Ice Age.
(NH, 9/96, p.35)
100BC - 1300 This represents the time period of the Anasazi culture of northern Arizona, New Mexico, southern Utah and Colorado.
(WUD, 1994, p.53)
200-1215 The Fremont people lived in Utah and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8,9)
500-1315 The Fremont Indians lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon during this period and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)
900-1100 A Fremont culture settlement in Horse Canyon, Utah, left extensive ruins that became known as Range Creek.
(SFC, 6/30/04, p.A2)
1300 A drought pervaded the southwest of North America.
(Sm, 3/06, p.74)
1350 The Fremont Indians, who had lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon since about 200, disappeared from the archeological record.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)(Sm, 3/06, p.74)
1500 Geologists in 2009 said an earthquake of magnitude 6.5-7, dated to about this time, tore a deep gash into a 35-mile fault segment along the Wasatch front of Utah state.
(SFC, 9/25/09, p.A8)
1801 Jun 1, Mormon leader Brigham Young (d.1877), the second president of the Mormon Church, was born in Whitingham, Vt.
(AP, 6/1/97)
1805 Dec 23, Joseph Smith (d.1844), founder of the Mormon Church, was born in Sharon, Vermont. [see 1823,1830]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(HN, 12/23/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1820 Joseph Smith claimed that God and Christ appeared to him in Palmyra, NY, and told him not to join any existing church but to prepare for an important task.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1823 Sep 21, The Angel Moroni 1st appeared to Joseph Smith, according to Smith (founder of Mormon Church). Smith in New York claimed that an angel named Moroni led him to ancient golden plates that revealed the untold story of America during biblical times.
(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A1,6)(MC, 9/21/01)
1826 Aug 22, Colonies under Jedediah Strong Smith moved near Salt Lake Utah.
(http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-112/summary/index.asp)
1826 Nov 27, Jedediah Smith’s expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the south-western part of the continent. He crossed the Mohave Desert and the San Bernadino Mountains from Utah.
(HN, 11/27/98)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T5)
1827 Joseph Smith received his tablets on Mount Cumorah near Palmyra, NY.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1829 May 15, Joseph Smith was "ordained" by John the Baptist- according to Joseph Smith. Mormon church was founded in NY.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1830 Apr 6, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith and five others in Fayette, Seneca County, N.Y. Joseph Smith (25) published the “Book of Mormon" in Palmyra, New York. He claimed that the manuscript was based on ancient golden plates revealed to him by the angel Moroni and written in the language of the Egyptians. The book records the journey of an ancient Israelite prophet, Lehi, and his family to the American continent some 2,000 years ago. [see 1827, 1831] Some 5,000 copies of the book were published. In 2014 Avi Steinberg authored “The Lost Book of Mormon: A Journey Through the Mythic Lands of Nephi, Zarahemla & Kansas City, Missouri."
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NH, 10/96, p.19)(AP, 4/6/97)(SFC, 6/15/12, p.A24)(SSFC, 10/26/14, p.P3)
1831 Early followers of Joseph Smith merged with a communal Christian sect and relocated to Kirkland, Ohio. [see 1838]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)
1832 Mar 24, Mormon founder, martyr Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1836 Mar 27, The first Mormon temple was dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio.
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1837 Conflicts broke up the Mormon communities in Missouri and Ohio.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1838 Oct 31, A mob of about 200 attacked a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children. In the massacre at Haun’s Mill in western Missouri 17 Mormon settlers were killed. Joseph Smith was arrested and the Mormons were driver from the state.
(HN, 10/31/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1838 Nov 13, Joseph F. Smith, 6th president of Mormon church, was born.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1838 Amid rising debts and rumors of polygamy, the Mormons moved from Ohio to Far West, Mo., where they clashed violently with other settlers. [see 1839]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)
1839 Joseph Smith escaped from a Missouri prison and the Mormons left Far West, Mo., and started buying land for a new settlement in Nauvoo, Ill. [see1844]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1840 May 10, Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1841 Apr 6, Cornerstone was laid for 2nd Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Missouri.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1841-1846 The Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, Ill., was built.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)
1843 Jul 12, Mormon leader Joseph Smith said God encourages polygamy.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1844 Jun 27, Mormon Joseph Smith (38) and his brother, Hyram, were again imprisoned. A mob stormed the Carthage, Ill. prison and the brothers were killed. [see 1846] James Strang laid claim to being his rightful successor but Brigham Young soon took control of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Strang then began evangelizing in the Midwest and East with some success. His followers were later called "Strangites."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(AP, 6/27/97)
1844 Aug 8, Brigham Young was chosen to head the Mormon church following the killing of Joseph Smith in Illinois.
(AP, 8/8/97)(HN, 8/8/98)
1845 An account of the murder of Joseph Smith, Mormon leader, was published at Nauvoo, Ill., by an eye-witness named William M. Daniels.
(LSA., Fall 1995, p.18)
1846 Feb 4, The first Mormons left Nauvoo, Ill., and crossed the Mississippi River heading toward Utah. Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s successor, led the Mormons overland from Nauvoo, Ill., to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Mormon pioneer Sam Brannon gathered some 250 Mormons aboard the ship, Brooklyn, and sailed from New York to San Francisco. [see 1847]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1846 Feb 10, Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus to the west from Illinois.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1846 Jul 21, Mormons founded the 1st English settlement in the San Joaquin Valley of Calif.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1847 Jul 24, Mormon leader Brigham Young and some 17,000 followers, the first members of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.
(AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1847 The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was founded in Utah. In 2003 the 360-member group received a National Medal for the Humanities.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I10)
1847 Brigham Young, leading a group of about 140 Mormons, founded Salt Lake City. Known as Great Salt Lake City until 1868, the city went on to become the territorial, and later state, capital of Utah. Young designed the city to match Mormon founder Joseph Smith‘s plans for the city of Zion. Salt Lake City quickly became a destination for Mormon immigrants from Europe and the eastern United States.
(HNQ, 1/7/01)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1848 Seagulls save the crops of early settlers from a horde of crickets. The California seagull was later made the state bird.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
1849 A party from Kansas, headed for the California Gold Rush, called themselves the Jayhawkers. Another party from Missouri named themselves the Bugsmashers. Both groups left Salt Lake to late to cross the Sierra and took the southern route. The stumbled into the Death Valley region around Christmas.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A15)
1850 Sep 9, Territories of New Mexico & Utah created.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1850 Sep 29, Pres. Millard Fillmore named Mormon leader Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory.
(HN, 9/29/98)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1850 The Mormons applied unsuccessfully for Utah statehood. Debates with the federal government ensued over political issues and polygamy.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1850s Mormon settlers began arriving on Hawaii. Church members sent money to buy up all the property on Lanai. William Gibson registered the land under his own name and refused to hand the deeds over to the Mormon Church. Gibson went on to become a friend, advisor and cabinet minister to King Kalakaua.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.T10)
1852-1892 The Salt Lake Temple on Temple Square in Salt lake City was constructed over this period.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N2)
1853 Oct 26, R.H. Kern, American artist, was killed by Indians in Utah.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1853 John C. Fremont began his 5th expedition west, his 2nd into the Colorado Mountains, and traveled across Kansas, southern Colorado and Utah in search of a railroad route over the Central Rockies. The group reached Mormon settlements in Utah. Fremont brought along photographer Solomon Nunes Carvalho, who took hundreds of daguerreotypes. Many of the images were lost in an 1881 NYC warehouse fire. In 1994 Robert Shlaer set out to recreate the images and in 2000 published "Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Fremont’s Last Expedition Through the Rockies."
(SFEC, 7/9/00, BR p.12)(ON, 12/06, p.7)
1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39) 1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39)
1857 Sep 11, The Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory was carried out by Mormons fearful of an impending invasion by the US Army. Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, John Doyle Lee, offered safe passage to the nearly 150 men, women and children on the Fancher train from Arkansas crossing Mormon Utah bound for California, if they left their weapons, livestock and wagons behind-ostensibly to appease hostile Indians. All but the youngest children were slaughtered. Lee, who first blamed the massacre on Paiute Indians, was excommunicated in 1870 and tried, convicted and executed in 1877 for his role in the killings. 120 settlers were killed; 17 children, all under 7, were spared. In 2002 Will Bagley authored “Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows." In 2011 the site was dedicated as a national historic landmark.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)(AP, 9/11/07)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
1857 Sep 15, Mormon leader Brigham Young called out the Nauvoo Legion to fight the U.S. Troops if they enter Utah Territory.
(http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Utah_War)
1858 Apr 6, President Buchanan issued a proclamation declaring Mormons in the Utah Territory to be in a state of rebellion against the US government.
(AP, 4/6/08)
1858 Jun, The US Army entered Utah and installed a new governor.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1861 Mar 2, US Congress created the Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories
(SC, 3/2/02)
1862 Jul 1, The US Congress outlawed polygamy for the 1st time. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Pres. Lincoln, made polygamy illegal in American territories. It led to the prosecution of over 1300 Mormons. It also granted large tracts of public land to the states with the directive to sell for the support of institutions teaching the mechanical and agricultural arts. It also obligated state male university students to military training. The education initiative resulted in 68 land-grant colleges.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.8,14)(HNQ, 10/6/02)(MC, 7/1/02)
1866 Apr 6, Butch Cassidy, [Robert Parker], US desperado (Wild Bunch Passage), was born. [see Apr 13,15]
(HN, 4/6/98)(MC, 4/6/02)
1866 Apr 13, Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker], American western outlaw and leader of the Wild Bunch, was born in Beaver, Utah. [see Apr 6,15]
(HN, 4/13/99)
1866 Apr 15, Robert LeRoy Parker, a.k.a. "Butch Cassidy," was born in Beaver, Utah. [see Apr 6,13]
(MesWP)
1867 The Tabernacle, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, was completed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N2)
1868 Apr 6, Brigham Young married his 27th and final wife (I am done with wifery).
(MC, 4/6/02)
1869 May 6, A special Southern Pacific train left Sacramento bound for Utah to drive the final spike connecting the SP to the Union Pacific on May 8. The UP train did not arrive until May 10.
(WSJ, 8/25/00, p.W10)
1869 May 10, In the desert near Promontory, Utah, railway official Leland Stanford, drove down a golden spike to unite the tracks from the east and the west. The first transcontinental railroad was completed when the Union Pacific Railroad--building west from Omaha, Nebraska--and the Central Pacific--building east from Sacramento, California--met at Promontory Point, Utah. Recognizing that transportation was essential to the economic development of the nation, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1862 that provided for the construction of a railroad linking the east and west coasts. More than 10,000 laborers recruited from China worked on the CPR. A depression followed the completion of the railroad and the Chinese became a target of ill-will as unemployment soared. Engine 350 was the first one down the Union Pacific line and commemorative platters were made for the occasion. In 1999 David Howard Bain published "Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad." In 2000 Stephen E. Ambrose authored "Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869." In 2007 Richard Rayner authored “The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(SFC,1/22/97, Z1 p.7)(HN, 5/11/99)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.A28)(WSJ, 8/25/00, p.W10)(SSFC, 12/17/00, BR p.10)(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.M1)(SSFC, 5/5/19, p.A2)
1870 Feb 12, Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote. However, that right was taken away in 1887.
(AP, 2/12/07)
1871 Oct 2, Mormon leader Brigham Young, 70, was arrested for polygamy. He was later convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1871 In Utah the Mormon temple in St. George was completed. This was the 3rd Mormon temple to be built in the US and the first one in Utah.
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.R10)
1871 The Salt Lake Tribune was founded by dissident Mormons.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1873 Jan, Ann Eliza Young (b.1844), one of the many wives of Mormon leader Brigham Young, revolted against the indignities and hypocrisy of polygamy. Her divorce was granted in January, 1875.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Eliza_Young)
1873 Aug 18, Otto Harbach, songwriter (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes), was born in, SLC, Utah.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1873-1874 Carleton Watkins photographed Weber Canyon.
(WSJ, 8/20/99, p.A16)
1875 In the early autumn Brigham Young sent Daniel W. Jones and five elders on horseback to Mexico. During the 3,000-mile trip, the missionaries stopped frequently in New Mexico and Arizona, preaching the gospel and converting Indians. Jones and his team arrived in Franklin, Texas, (El Paso) in 1876, crossing through present-day Juarez. They were warmly welcomed by Mexican officials.
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1877 Aug 29, Brigham Young (76), the second president of the Mormon Church, died in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1877 John Doyle Lee, Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, was executed for his role in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory. The 2002 novel “Red Water" by Judith Freeman told the story and set the execution in 1887.
(HN, 9/11/98)(HNQ, 9/14/99)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.M1)
1879 Mar 17, The US Supreme Court in Wilkerson v. Utah ruled that Utah could use a firing squad for capital punishment.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/99/130/case.html)
1879 May 5, The US Supreme Court supported the power of states to restrict polygamy in Reynolds vs. United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._United_States)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
1879 May 16, Wallace Wilkerson was executed by firing squad in Utah. It was so disgraceful that one newspaper, the Ogden Junction, sarcastically reminded the state that "the French guillotine never fails." It was 27 minutes before he could be pronounced dead.
(http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/012896.html)
1880 David King Udall (1851-1938), while living in Nephi, Utah, was called to be the Mormon bishop in St. Johns, Arizona, a small and primarily Hispanic Catholic community.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_King_Udall)
1882 Mar 22, US Congress outlawed polygamy. The Edmunds-Tucker Act was adopted by the US to suppress polygamy in the territories. [see Morrill Act 1862]
(AP, 3/22/97)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)
1885 May 15, Mormons began an exodus from the United States into Mexico. Chihuahua Governor Ochoa had agreed to sell land to the Mormons to colonize. Church President John Taylor had explored the area and church officials selected Casas Grandes, a valley in the state of Chihuahua, as the place to begin settlement.
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1886 Assembly Hall, a gothic-style building built by the Latter-day Saint pioneers, was completed in Salt Lake City.
(THM, 4/27/97, p.N3)
1887 Feb 19, The 49th US Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act. It abolished women's suffrage, forced wives to testify against their husbands, disincorporated the LDS Church, dismantled the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, abolished the Nauvoo Legion, and provided that LDS Church property in excess of $50,000 would be forfeited to the United States.
(http://somemormonstuff.blogspot.com/2007/02/edmunds-tucker-act-chap.html)
1889 The Khan Mansion was built in SLC.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C11)
1890 Sep 25, Wilford Woodruff, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a Manifesto formally renouncing the practice of polygamy. The Mormons renounced the practice of polygamy after six decades in exchange for statehood for Utah. Smith’s revelation that God authorized polygamy remained in Article 132 of the church’s Doctrine and Covenants.
(SFC, 8/6/98, p.A11)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)(AP, 9/25/07)
1893 Jan 4, US president Cleveland granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1893 Apr 6, Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City was dedicated.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1895 Mar 28, Spencer W. Kimball, 12th Prophet of the Mormon Church, was born.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1896 Jan 4, Utah was admitted to the Union as the 45th state.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1900 Jan 25, the US 56th Congress refused to seat Brigham H. Roberts, Mormon Democrat from Utah, because of his polygamy.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1906 Aug 19, Philo T. Farnsworth (d.1971), inventor (electronic TV), was born in Beaver County, Utah.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarnsworth.htm)
1907 Jul 8, George W. Romney, later governor of Michigan, was born into a Mormon family in Chihuahua, Mexico. He later was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination until he admitted that he had been "brainwashed" by the military on the Vietnam War.
(HN, 7/8/98)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)
1909 Earl Douglass discovered dinosaur bones in eastern Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)
1910 Senator William Curry built his Curry Manor in Vernal.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T9)
1911 Sep 23, Frank Moss (d.2003), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), was born in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1913 Loretta Young (d.2000), film actress, was born in Salt Lake City as Gretchen Michaela Young.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.B10)
1914 Jan 10, In Utah John Morrison, a Salt Lake City grocer and father of six, was shot dead along with his son (17) after two men entered his shop. Labor leader Joe Hill (1879-1915) was soon treated for a fresh gunshot wound and was later tried and convicted for murder.
(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1915 Oct 4, Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah was established. Pres. Woodrow Wilson established Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)(MC, 10/4/01)
1915 Nov 19, Joe Hill (b.1879), labor leader and songwriter, was executed for murder. Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom) was executed after being convicted of killing two men in a holdup in Salt Lake City in 1914. He claimed the charges against him were trumped up and won worldwide support, including that of President Woodrow Wilson. Nevertheless, Hill was tried, convicted and executed by firing squad. Hill, born Joel Haggelund in Sweden in 1879, went to the United States in 1902 and soon joined the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies). In 2011 William Adler authored “The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill)(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A21)(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1920 Oct 13, Laraine Day (d.2007), film actress, was born in Roosevelt, Utah. Her work included over 4 dozen films from the late 1930s to 1960.
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.D9)
1921-1924 Charles Rendell Mabey served as governor.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A21)
1922 The Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1924 Mar 8, Coal mine explosion killed 171 at Castle Gate, Utah.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1926 Feb 17, An avalanche buried 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah, and 40 died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1928 The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, a 74,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge in Utah, was established.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1930 Jun 17, Pres. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, placing the highest tariff on imports to the U.S. It was sponsored by Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, and Reed Smoot, a senator from Utah. An international trade war began with the US passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Foreign countries retaliated. Many economists blame Smoot-Hawley for deepening the depression. It reflected the "Protectionism" of the times.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(HN, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1930 Jul 7, Construction began on Boulder Dam on the Colorado River. It is now known as Hoover Dam. Paul Wattis was an executive with Utah Construction and Mining, a family business that built the Boulder Dam. Bechtel was one of 6 companies that built the dam.
(AP, 7/7/97)(SFEC, 11/30/97, p.C13)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.E2)
1933 Apr 7, “Near beer" (3.2 beer) became legal after FDR signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, which had made drinking alcohol a federal crime. Prohibition ended when Utah became the 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment. [see Dec 5]
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(HN, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1933 Dec 5, Prohibition was repealed--much to the delight of thirsty revelers--when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The nationwide prohibition of the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages was established in January 1919 with passage of the 18th Amendment. Prohibition's supporters gradually became disenchanted with it as the illegal manufacture and sale of liquor fostered a wave of criminal activity. By 1932, the Democratic Party's platform called for the repeal of Prohibition. In February 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th and with Utah's vote in December, Prohibition ended. Three-quarters of the states approved the repeal of the 18th amendment and FDR proclaimed the end of Prohibition.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(AP, 12/5/97)(HNPD, 12/5/98)
1934 Mar 22, Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator from Utah, was born.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1935 Sep 3, Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive an automobile over 300 MPH. Campbell drove the Bluebird Special on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah at a speed of 304.331 MPH.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1936-1947 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) was the mayor of Price, his hometown.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1937 Alta ski resort near Salt Lake City opened with a rope tow as the 2nd US ski resort. It was designed by Alf Engen (d.1997), ski-jump champion.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A16)
1942 Sep 17, Japanese detainees from the California assembly center at Tanforan race track began their transfer to Abraham, Utah, 140 miles south of SLC. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. The first trainload internees arrived at the Topaz internment camp. By October the desert camp had reached its maximum capacity of 8,232.
(Ind, 2/2/02, 5A)(SFC, 4/230/16, p.C2)
1942-1945 Dave Tatsuno (1914-2006) shot a home video, later named "Topaz," in the Topaz Relocation Center in the central Utah desert. In 1997 it was placed on the National Film Registry, becoming the second home movie added to the list.
(SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)(www.scu.edu/diversity/tatsuno.html)
1944 Jun, Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted tests at Granite Peak, a 250-square-mile area near the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
(AH, 6/03, p.49)
1946 Mine Okubo authored “Citizen 13660," an illustrated account of her experiences at Japanese internment camps in California and Utah.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A24)
1946 A dissenting Mormon sect from Utah set up a community practicing polygamy in Bountiful, BC, Canada. In 2009 2 leaders of the Bountiful commune appeared in court to answer criminal charges.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.44)
1947 The Mormon church membership grew to 1 million.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1948 May 29, Anthony Geary, actor (Luke/Bill-General Hospital), was born in Coalville, UT.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1949-1957 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) governed Utah.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1951 Willam Christensen (d.2001 at 99), master of the SF Opera Ballet, returned to Utah and founded the 1st ballet department in an American Univ. at the Univ. of Utah.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.B2)
1951 In Utah an interview with madam Rossette Duccinni Davie, who ran the Rose Rooms brothel in Ogden with her husband in the 1940s and 1950s, was transcribed in shorthand style. The interview with former Standard-Examiner reporter Bert Strand was hidden inside a box of 1970s photos from the newspaper and only became public in 2020.
(AP, 2/1/20)
1952 The Salt Lake Tribune entered a joint operating agreement with the Mormon run Deseret News.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1955 Jan 30, Jill Kinmont Boothe (1936-2012), Los Angeles native and national women's slalom champion, crashed and broke her neck in Alta, Utah, while trying to make the US Olympic team. She was paralyzed below her shoulders and would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Her skiing career over, she learned to write, type and paint using her neck and shoulder muscles with the aid of a hand brace.
(AP, 2/12/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Kinmont_Boothe)
1956 Phyllis, the 92-year-old great-granddaughter of Brigham Young, and Paul Lyman Wattis (d.1971), of Utah Construction and Mining, established a philanthropic foundation to spread their wealth.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.D7)
1958 Jul 11, Monument Valley, straddling the Arizona-Utah border, became the 1st Navajo Tribal Park.
(SSFC, 10/6/02, p.C15)
1958 Frank Moss (1911-2003), liberal Utah Democratic was elected US Senator (1958-1976). He served until 1976 when he was defeated by Orrin Hatch.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
c1960 The Tooele Army Depot decided to dispose of its old munitions by blowing them up every spring and summer. In an uncritical climate Magcorp magnesium refinery set up shop nearby and split magnesium chloride extracted from the Great Salt Lake. A hazardous waste zone, incinerators and landfills followed. In 1999 Chip Ward authored "Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West."
(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.4)
1960-1972 J. Bracken Lee (1899-1996) was the mayor of Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A18)
1962-1973 In Utah the Deseret Test Center conducted 46 chemical warfare exercises at Fort Douglas.
(SFC, 11/1/02, p.A3)
1968 Open air testing of chemical weapons at the US Army Dugway Proving Grounds in the Utah desert caused the deaths of some 3,600 [6,400] sheep in an adjacent valley.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 6/1/98, p.A1)
1969 Robert Redford bought 6000 acres in Utah’s Provo Canyon with the idea of establishing a community devoted to art and nature.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.2)
1970 Robert Smithson (1938-1973), American minimalist land artist, created his “Spiral Jetty," a 1,500 foot coil of rock extending from the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
(WSJ, 10/29/05, p.P16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson)
1971 Mar 11, Philo T. Farnsworth (b.1906), inventor of television, died in Salt Lake City, Utah. Later Prof. Donald Godfrey authored "Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television" and Evan I. Schwartz authored "The Last Lone Inventor."
(SFC, 9/7/02, p.D1)(www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/farnsworth.cfm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy (1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He parachuted into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
{Hijacking, USA, USA, FBI}
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Aug 10, An Earth-grazing meteoroid grazed the atmosphere above Canada. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Daylight_1972_Fireball)
1972 S. George Ellsworth (d.1997), historian, published “Utah Heritage," a 7th grade textbook history of the state. It was updated in 1994.
(SFC, 12/26/97, p.B6)
1972-1988 The Great Salt Lake of Utah roughly doubled in size over this period.
(NH, 9/97, p.16)
1974 Aug 29, Moses Malone became the first basketball player to go straight from high school to the pros when he joined the Utah Stars.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)
1974 Oct 2, Nancy Wilcox, believed to have been a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy (d.1989), disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/wilcox_nancy.html)
1974 Oct 31, Suspected Bundy victim Laura Aime disappeared in Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1974 Nov 8, Debi Kent disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was later identified as another victim of Theodore “Ted" Bundy (1946-1989), the Green River Murderer, who would be officially convicted of killing 36 women and executed on January 24, 1989, in Florida.
(www.crimelibrary.com/bundy/attack.htm)
1975 Jul 4, Nancy Baird (23), a Bundy victim, disappeared from a convenience store where she worked in Layton, Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1975 Claude Rex Nowell (1944-2008), founded his Church of Summum in Utah and changed his name to Summum Bonum Amen Ra following an alleged visit by extraterrestrial beings.
(WSJ, 11/13/08, p.A14)(www.summum.us/about/corkybio.shtml)
1976 Nov 2, In Utah Orrin Hatch defeated 18-year incumbent Senator Frank Moss.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1976 Nov 10, The Utah Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for convicted murderer Gary Gilmore to be executed, according to his wishes. The sentence was carried out the following January.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1976 Allan Howe (d.2000) lost his re-election bid to the Congress following a conviction for soliciting sex in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B5)
1976 The US Congress asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to find land that might qualify for wilderness protection. It found 3.2 million eligible acres in Utah. Congressional legislation established rules for the BLM’s management of federal land.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.26)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.33)
1976 Utah Int’l. Inc., under Edmund Littlefield, merged with General Electric in a $2.2 billion deal, the largest to date. The Utah company had built the Hoover Dam.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D6)(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A15)
1977 Jan 17, Gary Gilmore (b.1940), convicted for two murders he committed in Utah, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first US execution in a decade. In 1979 Norman Mailer authored his Pulitzer Prize winning book: “The Executioner’s Song," the story of Gary Gilmore.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gilmore)(AP, 1/17/98)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.103)0
1978 Jun 8, Utah leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon lay priesthood, going on missions or getting married in temples. Prophet Spencer Kimball opened the Mormon priesthood to blacks.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ts747g)(SFC, 6/2/18, p.A7)
1978 Jun 11, Joseph Freeman Jr. became the 1st black priest in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
(www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1979/4/1979_4_110.shtml)
1978 Jun 23, Joseph Freeman Jr., the 1st black priest in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, went in the Salt Lake Temple with his wife and 5 sons for sacred ordinances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_(LDS))
1978 Jul 23, Franklin Bradshow was killed in SLC, Utah. His daughter, Frances B. Schreuder (d.2004), had persuaded her son to kill her wealthy father due to "his stinginess." Schreuder was convicted in 1983.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.B6)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit anywhere to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp. produced the F-16 fighter jet. It became the first production military aircraft to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002, p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1979 Dec 5, Feminist Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church because of her outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
(AP, 12/5/99)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1980 Jun 20, Lake Powell, straddling the Arizona-Utah border behind the Glen Canyon Dam, completed its fill, which began in 1963
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A1)(www.lakepowell.com/travel/glen-canyon-dam.cfm)
1980 Robert Redford established the Sundance Resort and Institute in Provo Canyon to support independent filmmaking and playwriting.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.2)
1981 Mar 4, A jury in Salt Lake City convicted Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two black men who were shot to death.
(AP, 3/4/01)
1981 Oct 8, An explosive device at the Univ. of Utah was defused. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC, 11/9/97, Z1 p.4)
1981 Robert Redford founded a Film Festival in Sundance, Utah. In 1985 the festival moved to Park City, Utah. In 1991 it was named the Sundance Film Festival.
(www.cffvf.org/sundance-film-festival.html)
1982 May 3, Sinbad the Sailor, the star horse of Ronald Reagan’s “Death Valley Days" TV series, died when he was struck by lightning at Kanab, Utah.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C12)
1982 Dec 2, In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik. Barney Clark, a retired dentist, lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart.
(AP, 12/2/97)(HN, 12/2/98)
1983 In Utah rising floodwaters impacted the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. In 1991 Terry Tempest Williams authored "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place."
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1984 Jul 24, In American Fort, Utah, Ron and Dan Lafferty stabbed to death their sister-in-law, Brenda Lafferty, and her daughter Erica, aged 15 months. In 2003 Jon Krakauer authored "Under the Banner of Heaven," an account of the murder and the Mormon background of the Laffertys.
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W15)
1984 Dec 19, Near Orangeville, Utah, 27 miners died in a coal mine fire due to a faulty air compressor at the Wilberg Mine.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A14)(AP, 12/19/04)
1984 The 200-acre Best Friends Animal Sanctuary was located to Angel Canyon in Southern Utah. It was the largest no-kill animal shelter in the country.
(SFEM, 6/6/99, p.6)
1985 Apr 2, Ronnie Gardner shot and killed Utah attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt at the Metropolitan Hall of Justice in Salt Lake City. Gardner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2010 Gardner (49) chose to die by firing squad, an option which was removed by state lawmakers in 2004, but still available to him.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A5)
1985 Nov 5, Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon Church, died at age 90; he was succeeded by Ezra Taft Benson.
(AP, 11/5/05)
1987 Feb 20, The Unabomber placed a bomb in a parking lot behind CAAMS computer store in Salt Lake City. CAAMS vice president, Gary Wright was seriously injured.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A3)(AP, 2/20/98)
1988 Jan 28, A 13-day standoff in Marion, Utah, between police and a polygamist clan ended in gunfire that killed a state corrections officer and seriously wounded the group's leader, Addam Swapp.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1989 Feb 24, In Utah a 150-million-year-old fossil egg, still inside the mother, was found by CAT scan to contain the oldest dinosaur embryo.
(http://tinyurl.com/fme92)
1989 Mar 23, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced atomic fusion at room temperature.
(SS, 3/23/02)(WSJ, 9/5/03, p.B1)
1990 Sep 2, Brian Watkins (22), a tourist from Utah, was stabbed in the heart and died in NYC while defending his family from muggers. Seven young men were convicted in the case. In 2015 a judge overturned the conviction of Johnny Hincapie (43) and ordered a new trial. Hincapie had testified that a detective beat him to get a signed confession.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=60727659)(Econ, 12/8/12, p.31)(SFC, 10/7/15, p.A7)
1991 Jan 18, Three young people were crushed to death at an AC-DC concert in Salt Lake City.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Sep 21, An 18-hour hostage drama ended in Sandy, Utah, as Richard L. Worthington, who had killed a nurse and seized control of a hospital maternity ward, finally freed his nine captives, including a baby who was born during the siege. Worthington committed suicide in prison in 1994.
(AP, 9/21/01)
1994 May 30, Mormon Church president Ezra Taft Benson died in Salt Lake City at age 94.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1995 Mar 3, Howard Hunter (87), US leader of Mormon Church (1994-95), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1995 Mar 12, Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008), a grandson of Mormon pioneers, took over as president and prophet of the Mormon church.
(AP, 1/28/08)
1995 Jun 16, Salt Lake City was awarded the XIX Winter Olympic Games for 2002. A scandal later developed over pay-offs.
(AP, 6/16/00)
1995 Dec 11, Utah Congresswoman Enid Greene Waldholtz held an emotional news conference in which she publicly addressed the scandal surrounding her personal and campaign finances and blamed the mess on her estranged husband, Joe.
(AP, 12/11/00)
1995 The Slamdance Film Festival was founded by Peter Baxter as an alternative to the Sundance Film Festival.
(SFC, 2/1/99, p.E1)
1995 Frank Curtis, a Mormon brother, died. He had been convicted of criminal sex abuse. In his 1998 lawsuit filed in Multnomah County, Oregon, Jeremiah Scott, accused the church of hiding the fact that Curtis, one of its high priests, was a pedophile. Curtis was excommunicated from the church in 1983 in Pennsylvania but was rebaptized in 1984 in Michigan. In 1988, he joined the Brentwood Ward in Portland. In 2011 Lisa Davis authored “The Sins of Brother Curtis: A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church.
(SSFC, 3/20/11, p.G7)
1996 Jan 26, In Utah John Albert Taylor (b.~1960) was executed by firing squad. He had been sentenced to death for the 1988 rape and strangulation of 11-year-old Charla King and had then chosen the firing squad as the method of execution.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Albert_Taylor)
1996 Mar 5, Representative Enid Greene Waldholtz (Republican, Utah), tangled in a financial mess that she blamed on her estranged husband, announced she would not seek a second term.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Sep 18, Pres. Clinton signed an executive order to transform 1.7 million acres of Utah land into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.T5)
1996 Bruce Babbitt, US Sec. of the Interior, called for another survey of land that might qualify for wilderness protection, which yielded another 2.6 million acres in Utah.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.26)
1996 A Utah law granted a concealed weapons permit to anyone who is 21 or older, who can prove “good character" and attends a short firearms course.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A6)
1997 The Salt Lake Tribune became an asset of Tele-Communications Inc. following the TCI merger with Kearns-Tribune Corp.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
1998 Mar 25, Sumitomo Bank of California, the state’s 6th largest retail bank, announced its sale to Zions Bancorporation of Salt Lake for $546 million.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.E1)
1998 May 23, John Daniel Kingston drove his daughter (17) to a remote family ranch and beat her for running away from a polygamous marriage. She had been forced to marry her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, and become his 15th wife. The uncle was convicted for incest and unlawful sex in 1999.
(SFC, 8/6/98, p.A11) (SFC, 6/4/99, p.A3)
1998 May 29, Three men shot and killed police officer Dale Claxton of Cortez, Colo., when he stopped them in a suspected stolen water truck. The body of Alan Pilon, a suspect in the murder, was found in the Utah desert in 1999.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A7)
1998 Jun 14, The Chicago Bulls clinched their sixth NBA championship, defeating the Utah Jazz in game six played in Salt Lake City, 87-86.
(AP, 6/14/03)
1998 Aug 7, Five young girls (ages 2-6) died from heat exposure after they were trapped in the trunk of a car in West Valley City.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A5)
1998 Sep 10, In Utah Anna Palmer (10) was stabbed to death in Salt Lake City. In 2010 DNA evidence linked Matthew John Breck to her murder. Breck, serving time in Idaho for a 2001 conviction of sodomy with a minor, was extradited to Utah.
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.A6)(http://missing87975.yuku.com/sreply/11770)
1998 Sep 19, David Fink (20 months) was kidnapped by his parents from a hospital in SLC where he was being treated for malnourishment. His parents claimed he was a Christ Child. The family was found in Montana Oct 5 and the parents were taken into custody.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 27, Alex Joseph (62), founder of Big Water, died. He was reputed to have wed 20 women and left behind 21 grandchildren.
(SFC, 9/29/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 12, Marc Hodler (1919-2006), Swiss lawyer and International Olympics Committee official, unleashed a series of corruption allegations that included systemic buying and selling of votes in Olympic bidding, particularly for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 10/21/06, p.B6)
1999 Jan 8, Two top organizers of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City resigned in a mushrooming bribery scandal.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 22, A 2nd member of the Int'l. Olympic Commission resigned as part of the bribery scandal on the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 15, In Salt Lake City, Utah, Sergei Babarin (70) entered the Mormon Church's Family History Library and opened fire. He killed 2 people, Patricia Frengs of Pleasant Hill, Ca. and security guard Donald Thomas (62). He wounded 4 others and was shot dead by police.
(SFC, 4/16/99, p.A3)(SFC, 4/17/99, p.A2)
1999 May 24, The new Mormon Church genealogical web site was unveiled and overloaded @ www.familysearch.org.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 11, A tornado hit downtown Salt Lake City killing one person and injuring over a hundred.
(SFC, 8/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 4, Eight teenagers taking part in a wilderness program for troubled youths beat one counselor and tied another to a tree and fled into the desert. They were all rounded up within days and 7 of 8 accepted plea bargains.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Richard and Joan Ostling authored “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise."
(www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/charles/mormonsyl.htm)
1999 The Salt Lake Tribune became an asset of ATT following the ATT merger with Tele-Communications Inc.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 14, The federal government announced the return of 84,000 acres in northern Utah to the Ute Indians. The land was taken in 1916 for the rights to oil shale reserves.
(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb, Sheldon Johnson found 200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints in his backyard in St. George.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A3)
2000 Aug 1, A fire and methane gas explosion killed 2 workers at the Willow Creek Mine and injured 8 others.
(SFC, 8/2/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 11, As many as 8 people subdued Jonathan Burton (19) during a flight to Salt Lake City from Las Vegas after he broke into the cockpit. Burton was pronounced dead on arrival to a Salt Lake hospital.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A6)
2000 Oct, The 2-year-old son of Paul Wayment wandered from his truck and froze to death. Wayment killed himself in 2001 following a plea of negligent homicide.
(SFC, 7/19/01, p.A7)
2000 The 100th Mormon temple was dedicated in Belmont, Mass.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
2001 Jan 13, In Utah a small plane crashed into the Great Salt Lake and all 9 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.A2)
2001 Apr 4, Ed Roth (“Big Daddy") died at age 69 in Manti. He was one of the original creators of customized cars and the creator of the Rat Fink logo.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A21)
2001 May 14, Tom Green (52), a bigamist with 5 wives and 29 children, went on trial in SLC for bigamy. Green was convicted May 18 of 4 counts of bigamy and one count of failure to pay child support. Green was sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to pay $78,000 to the state for fraudulent welfare checks. In 2002 Green was convicted of child rape for impregnating one wife at age 13. Green was released from prison in 2007.
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.A3)(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A7)(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/25/02, p.A2)(SFC, 8/8/07, p.A5)
2001 May 19, In Utah it was reported that Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex) had reproduced into the worst infestation since the early 1970s. The infestation grew to be the worst since the 1940s. Grasshoppers devoured an additional 600,000 acres of vegetation.
(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/23/01, p.C8)
2001 Sep 13, In Utah Amtrak’s California Zephyr train crashed into a freight train near the Nevada border. 6 people were injured.
(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A23)
2001 Nov 14, Dennis Peron, California’s godfather of medical marijuana, was arrested in Cedar City, for smoking a joint in his hotel room. Police found nearly a pound of marijuana. Peron said he would fight to change the state law.
(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A23)
2001 Dec 11, 69 airport workers in SLC were charged with falsifying job and security applications.
(WSJ, 12/12/01, p.A1)
2001 The 775-room Grand America Hotel, owned by billionaire Earl Holding (74), was completed after 5 years of construction.
(WSJ, 1/10/02, p.A1)
2001 The 122,000 sq.-foot North American Museum of Ancient Life (NAMAL) opened in Lehi, south of SLC.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.C10)
2001 A dinosaur site was discovered in south central Utah near the town of Green River.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A2)
2002 Feb 8, Pres. Bush opened the 19th Winter Olympic Games as part of a 3-hour ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the Univ. of Utah campus, which included an emotional tribute to America's heroes, from the pioneers of the West to past Olympic champions to the thousands who perished on Sept. 11, 2001.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/8/03)
2002 Feb 11, Gold medals for the Olympics free-style skating event went to Russians Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya. French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne later admitted to being pressured to support the Russian team. On Feb 15 Olympic officials awarded a 2nd gold medal to Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale for their performance.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 13, In a startling development at the Salt Lake City winter games, the head of the French Olympic team said the French figure skating judge had been pressured to "act in a certain way" before she voted to give the gold medal to the Russians in pairs.
(AP, 2/13/03)
2002 Feb 19, In Salt Lake City, a win by bobsledders Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers gave the United States 21 medals in the Winter Games; Flowers became the first black athlete ever to strike gold at the Winter Olympics.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2002 Feb 20, At the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Jim Shea won the men's skeleton race, finishing the two runs at Utah Olympic Park in one minute, 41.96 seconds. The victory was the culmination of an emotional two months for Shea, whose 91-year-old grandfather, Olympic gold medal speedskater Jack Shea, died four weeks earlier. American speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno won the 1,500 meters after South Korean Kim Dong-sung, who had crossed the finish line ahead of him, was disqualified.
(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/20/07)
2002 Feb 21, In Salt Lake City Sarah Hughes (16) of Great neck, NY, won 1st place in the Olympics women’s free skate competition, leaving teammate Michelle Kwan to settle for a bronze.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/21/07)
2002 Feb 24, The XIX Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City came to a close. In one of the last events Canada beat the US hockey team 5-2 for the gold. Cross-country skiers from Spain and Russia were stripped of gold medals for failing drug tests.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 5, Elizabeth Ann Smart (14) was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Salt Lake City. She was found Mar 12, 2003, with kidnapper Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Eileen Barzee. In 2005 a judge found Mitchell mentally incompetent to stand trial. In 2009 Barzee (64) pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She also agreed to testify against her husband. In 2010 a federal jury found Mitchell guilty of kidnapping and forcing sex on her for 9 months. On May 25, 2011, a federal judge sentenced Brian David Mitchell to life in prison. Barzee was scheduled to be freed on Sept. 19, 2018.
(SFC, 6/7/02, p.A3)(SFC, 3/13/03, p.1)(SFC, 7/27/05, p.A3)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.A7)(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(SFC, 5/26/11, p.A11)(SFC, 9/12/18, p.A5)
2002 Jul 31, US court papers alleged that Russia's Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (53) used his influence with members of the Russian and French skating federations to fix the outcome of the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics last February. Tokhtakhounov was arrested in Italy. Italy’s highest court denounced an extradition bid and freed Tokhtakhounov.
(Reuters, 7/31/02)(SFC, 8/1/02, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alimzhan_Tokhtakhounov)
2002 Oct 25, In Utah 2 F-16 fighter jets collided during training and 1 pilot survived. The 2nd pilot’s body was found Oct 26.
(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A5)(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.A20)
2002 Nov 3, Kit Armstrong (10), pianist and sophomore at a Utah college, performed before a sold out audience at Stanford’s dinkelspiel Auditorium.
(SFC, 11/4/02, p.D1)
2002 In Utah Waldo Wilcox deeded his Range Creek Canyon lands to the public for $2.5 million as part of a conservation deal. He had sold the property to the Trust for Public Land in 2001 for $2.5 million.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)(Sm, 3/06, p.70)
2003 Jan 25, The Sundance Film Festival in Utah gave the grand jury prize to “American Splendor" and the documentary grand prize to “Capturing the Friedmans." The audience award went to “The Station Agent."
(SSFC, 1/26/03, p.A2)
2003 Jan 29, Frank Moss (b.1911), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), died. His efforts included the addition of Capitol Reef and Canyonlands to the national park system.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
2003 Feb 5, It was reported that genealogical research in Utah identified a gene that causes depression.
(WSJ, 2/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 12, Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who'd vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters.
(AP, 3/12/04)
2003 Mar 18, In Salt Lake City, Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were charged with aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary in the abduction of Elizabeth Ann Smart, who was found with them six days earlier.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2003 May 1, In Utah climber Aron Ralston (27) amputated his own arm to escape from a canyon where he was pinned by a boulder.
(SFC, 5/2/03, p.A18)
2003 Aug 11, Pres. Bush named Mike Leavitt, Republican governor of Utah, to head the EPA.
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 28, The US Senate approved Utah's Gov. Mike Leavitt as head of the EPA.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 5, A federal judge in Utah threw out the case against two civic leaders accused of bribery in their efforts to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2003 Dec 26, An avalanche in Provo Canyon, Utah, left 3 snowboarders dead.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 28, A motorhome carrying 10 people went off I-15 near SLC, Utah, and 5 people were killed including 4 children.
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A3)
2003 An oil field, estimated at a billion barrels, was discovered in Utah’s Sevier County.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.27)
2004 Jan 19, Gov. Walker expressed optimism in Utah's economy. She submitted an $8 billion budget that included 3.4% increased spending.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2004 Jul 19, Lori Hacking (27) of Salt Lake City, Utah, went missing. Her husband Mark (28) said she failed to return from a jog. She was reportedly five weeks pregnant. Police found her husband Mark Hacking running naked around a motel not far from his home the next day. He was put into a psychiatric hospital after police found him. Police arrested Hacking on Aug 2 and filed 1st degree murder charges on Aug 9. In 2005 Mark Hacking pleaded guilty to her murder. On June 6, 2005, Mark Hacking was sentenced 6 years to life in prison, the maximum the judge could give under Utah law. Under Utah's system of indeterminate criminal sentences.
(SFC, 8/2/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/3/04, p.A2)(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A4)(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)
2004 Aug 2, Police in Salt Lake City arrested Mark Hacking, whose wife, Lori, had disappeared, on a charge of aggravated murder. On October 1, 2004, searchers found human remains in the Salt Lake County landfill. By that afternoon police had confirmed that the remains were those of Lori Hacking. Lori Kay Soares was buried in Orem City Cemetery, Orem, Utah County, Utah. The dates on her stone are December 31, 1976 to July 19, 2004.
(AP, 8/2/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Hacking)
2004 Oct 1, The Utah state medical examiner's office used dental records to identify Lori Hacking's remains about six hours after they were discovered in a landfill.
(AP, 10/2/04)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.A2)
2004 Nov 2, Jon Huntsman (R) was elected governor of Utah.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.A18)
2004 Nov 2, Some 66% of Utah voters approved Amendment 3 to the state constitution and in effect banned same-sex marriage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Constitutional_Amendment_3)
2004 The Utah Legislature passed a law requiring the Univ. of Utah to lift a ban against students and employees carrying firearms.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Utah banned execution by firing squad. This did not apply to past cases and a man was executed by firing squad in 2010.
(Econ., 3/21/15, p.23)
2005 Jan 14, In Park City, Utah, 5 people were feared buried by a massive avalanche.
(AP, 1/15/05)
2005 May 2, Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman signed a measure defying the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act despite a warning from the federal education secretary that it could cost $76 million in federal aid. The legislation gives Utah's education standards priority over federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 5, It was reported that Wolverine Gas & Oil of Grand Rapids, Mich., had snapped up leasing rights to a half-million acres in central Utah and estimated yields up to a billion or more barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.C3)
2006 Jan 15, The NASA space capsule, Stardust, returned safely to Earth in a desert near Salt Lake City with the first dust ever fetched from a comet, a cosmic bounty that scientists hope will yield clues to how the solar system formed.
(http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/er.html)(AP, 1/15/06)
2006 Feb 24, Judge Walter Steed, a small-town judge with three wives, was ordered removed from the bench by the Utah Supreme Court for violating the state's bigamy law.
(AP, 2/24/06)
2006 Jun 5, More than 50 National Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the US-Mexico border as part of President Bush's crackdown on illegal immigration.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2006 Jul 24, Police officers in Salt Lake City found the body of missing 5-year-old Destiny Norton in the basement of a home in her neighborhood and arrested Craig R. Gregerson (20) who lived there. Destiny disappeared from outside her house on July 16.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Aug 7, Utah doctors successfully separated conjoined twins Kendra and Maliyah Herrin. The 4-year-old sisters had been born fused at the midsection with just one kidney and one set of legs. Reconstruction surgery continued.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 29, Warren Steed Jeffs (50), a fugitive polygamist, was arrested in Nevada. He was on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list for sex crimes in Utah and Arizona. Jeffs ruled the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) since his father died in 2002. The sect had broken from the Mormon Church over a century ago.
(SFC, 8/30/06, p.A11)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.34)
2006 Sep 20, In Salt Lake City a 2-year-old boy died from kidney failure due to an E. coli infection attributed to spinach.
(SFC, 10/6/06, p.A3)
2007 Jan 27, Sundance Film Festival's grand-jury prize for best US drama went to "Padre Nuestro," an immigrant saga about a Mexican teen's heartbreaking search for his father in America.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Salt Lake City, Utah, Sulejmen Talovic (18) opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others before police fatally shot him at the Trolley Square shopping mall. Talovic was armed with several rounds of ammunition and carried two guns. Ken Hammond, an off-duty officer, cornered Talovic and prevented further loss of life.
(AP, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 4, Jon and Karen Huntsman, the billionaire parents of Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman, announced that they would pay $1 million for a public education campaign in Utah about the risks of cervical cancer and a new vaccine that can prevent it.
(SFC, 4/5/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 11, In Utah Michelle MacNeill (50) died following cosmetic surgery. In 2013 her husband, Dr. Martin MacNeill (57), was convicted of knocking her out with drugs and leaving her to die in a tub.
(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/knf5ao3)
2007 Jun 18, In Utah an 11-year-old boy was dragged from a tent and killed by a black bear in American Fork Canyon.
(SFC, 6/19/07, p.A2)
2007 Jun 25, In Utah police recaptured Curtis Allgier (27) after he wrested a gun from a corrections officer Stephen Anderson, killed him and fled in a stolen SUV.
(SFC, 6/26/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 1, In northeastern Utah a wildfire burned 46 square miles and killed 3 people working in a hayfield.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.A7)
2007 Jul 7, Wildfires in California consumed 17,000 acres in Inyo National Forest and 7,500 acres in Los Padres National Forest. An 8,000-acre wildfire forced hundreds of people in the town of Winnemucca to leave their homes, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada. In Utah a 160,000-acre wildfire forced evacuations at Cove Fort and the Blundell Geothermal Power Plant. Wildfires also burned in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington states.
(AP, 7/8/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Jul 23, A wildfire in southern Idaho had covered more than 880 square miles, growing by about 200 square miles in just 24 hours during the weekend. Fire officials said it threatened tracking and radar facilities at Mountain Home Air Force bombing and firing range, which is used by pilots training for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Firefighters in central Utah faced a threat of strong wind gusts as they battled a huge wildfire, where several small communities were evacuated.
(AP, 7/23/07)(SFC, 7/23/07, p.A5)
2007 Aug 6, In Utah 6 coal miners were trapped by a cave-in more than 1,500 feet below the surface at the Crandall Canyon Mine.
(AP, 8/7/07)(SFC, 8/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 16, In Utah the search for six miners missing deep underground was abruptly halted after a second cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach them. The search for six trapped miners at the Crandall Canyon Mine was later abandoned. In 2012 mine operator Genwal Resources Inc. agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor criminal charges and pay a $500,000 fine.
(AP, 8/17/07)(AP, 8/16/08)(SFC, 3/10/12, p.A6)
2007 Sep 9, In Utah searchers found the body of Camille Cleverley (22) at the base of a cliff near Bridal Veil Falls in Provo. The Brigham Young Univ. student had been missing for over a week.
(SFC, 9/10/07, p.A4)
2007 Sep 25, Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group, was convicted in St. George, Utah, of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. Jeffs was later sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2007 Nov 6, George Osmond (90), father of Donny and Marie Osmond and patriarch to the family's singing group The Osmond Brothers, died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2007 Nov 20, In Utah polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, self-proclaimed prophet of a breakaway Mormon sect, was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a 14-year-old to marry her first cousin. In 2010 the Utah Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Jeffs and ordered a new trial saying a jury received incorrect instructions. On April 7, 2011, a federal judge handed control of a $114 million communal land trust back to the leaders of Jeff’s polygamous church. Courts had seized control of the trust in 2005.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC, 4/9/11, p.A5)
2008 Jan 6, In southeastern Utah a chartered bus ran off a wet road and rolled 41 feet down an embankment, killing eight passengers who were returning home from a ski trip. About 20 others were injured.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 19, James Levoy Sorenson (b.1921), medical device inventor and Utah real estate investor, died. He amassed over 40 medical patents and introduced the disposable paper surgical mask.
(WSJ, 1/26/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 26, The film “Frozen River," directed by Courtney Hunt, won first prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. “Trouble the Water" won as best US documentary film. “The Wackness" won the audience award.
(SSFC, 1/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Jan 26, It was reported that some 15,000 birds had died over the last month around Utah’s Great Salt Lake due to avian cholera, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida. The disease was introduced into the wild during the 1940s from US domestic poultry.
(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B6)
2008 Jan 27, Gordon B. Hinckley (b.1910), the humble head of the Mormon church, died in Salt Lake City. He added millions of new members and labored long to burnish the faith's image as a world religion.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Feb 4, In Utah Thomas S. Monson (80) was introduced as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had become known for his folksy storytelling as he ascended through church ranks.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Jun 16, In Utah the Bureau of Land Management announced a dinosaur find, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery." An excavation revealed at least four plant-eating dinosaurs and two carnivorous ones dating back to about 150 million BC.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Aug, Utah began a trial 4-day work week for about 17,000 of the state's 24,000 executive-branch employees. Closing state offices on Fridays was supposed to cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions. The program led to an increase in volunteer activities. In Sep, 2011, the 4-day week program ended after less money was saved than hoped. Residents has also complained about not having access to services on Fridays.
(AP, 7/11/09)(http://tinyurl.com/3ks2a9b)
2008 Aug 23, In Utah a small plane crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Canyonlands Field airport. All 10 aboard, including 9 employees of a Cedar City dermatology company, who traveled to remote areas to provide medical treatments.
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 24, In Guatemala a Cessna Caravan carrying humanitarian workers crashed about 60 miles east of Guatemala City killing 10 people, including five Americans. At least 2 people survived. The plane was headed to a village in the area of El Estor to build homes for CHOICE Humanitarian, a group based in West Jordan, Utah.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Sep 26, The Utah legislature addressed a $354 million budget deficit in a 2-day special session, primarily through a three percent across-the-board cut in state agency spending, while preserving a $500 million reserve fund to address a potential future shortfall.
(www.statescape.com/SessionUpdates/SessionUpdates.asp)
2008 In Utah scientists discovered the fossils of a predator dinosaur that lived about 100 million years ago. In 2013 it was named Siats meekerorum, and said to be related to allosauroids.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
2009 Feb 10, The Utah state Department of Agriculture said Africanized honey bees have been found for the first time in the Beehive State. The bees, long the subject of lore as "killer bees," were recently discovered in Utah's Washington and Kane counties.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Feb 25, US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar scrapped leases, created under the Bush administration, on federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb 25, The US Supreme Court ruled that the Summum group does not have a right to erect the “Seven aphorism" of its beliefs in Pleasant Gove City, Utah, park just because the Ten Commandments are displayed there.
(SFC, 2/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 9, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and state house and senate leaders agreed to eliminate the state’s 40-year-old private club system in an effort to boost tourism.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 17, In Utah Chiew Chan Saevang (37), a suspected opium trafficker, killed himself and his girlfriend, Yer Yang (40), after sheriff’s deputies chased them down on a state highway. Saevang was also wanted in the March 12 slaying of four Conover, NC, family members.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.A5)
2009 May 12, In Utah partitions known as “Zion curtains" began coming down as a new law came into effect allowing bartenders to serve patrons directly over the bar. This ended Utah’s requirement that people who wanted a drink join a “private club."
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A8)(Economist, 9/8/12, p.66)
2009 May 16, President Barack Obama reached across the political divide and named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2012, to the sensitive diplomatic post of US ambassador to China.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 Jun 22, US pilot Capt. George B. Houghton (28), of Candler, NC, died in an F-16 crash at the Utah Test and Training Range near the Nevada-Utah state line.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that a grasshopper invasion was under way in Utah. This year's invasion in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City was worse than anyone can remember.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 1, Utah ditched a 40-year-old requirement for bar customers to fill out applications and pay a fee to become a member of a private club before entering a bar.
(SFC, 7/2/09, p.A5)
2009 Sep 10, NASA made a successful first test of its Ares I rocket at promontory, Utah. It was created as part of a plan to return to the moon, but a recent panel said there isn’t enough money for the moon project.
(SFC, 9/11/09, p.A13)
2009 Sep 18, It was reported that some 20-50 thousands birds have died along the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake so far this year from avian botulism.
(SFC, 9/18/09, p.A21)
2009 Nov 10, Utah’s Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake city laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Dec 7, In Utah Susan Powell (28) was last seen at her West Valley City home as her husband, Josh Powell, took their two boys (ages 2 and 4) on a camping trip. Powell later claimed she ran off with another man. In 2012 authorities found her blood in the family home and a hand-written note expressing fear about her husband.
(SSFC, 12/27/09, p.A10)(SFC, 9/19/11, p.A4)(SFC, 3/31/12, p.A5)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 A team led by Neal Patwari and Joey Wilson of the Univ. of Utah came up with a way to peer through the walls of a building using a network of low cost little radios, which are used to look for motion as their signals are blocked by a moving object, such as a person.
(Econ, 10/17/09, p.96)
2009 Paleontologists in Utah discovered a site brimming with fossils dating back some 210 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A4)
2010 Jan 5, In Utah deputy sheriff Josie Greathouse Fox was killed following a traffic stop in Delta. Police searched for suspect Roberto Miramontes Roman, who had just sold drugs to a relative of the slain officer.
(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 9, Walter Fredrick Morrison (90), the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, died at his home in Monroe, Utah. Morrison began manufacturing his flying discs in 1948. He sold the production and manufacturing rights to his "Pluto Platter" in 1957. The plastic flying disc was later renamed the "Frisbee," with sales surpassing 200 million discs.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 May 8, In Utah GOP delegates voted to bar Sen. Bob Bennett (76) from seeking a fourth term, making him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this year and demonstrates the challenges candidates face from the right in 2010.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 28, Gary Coleman (b.1968), the child star from television show "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978-1986), died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 Jun 10, A judge in the US District Court for the District of Utah granted Novell's request for declaratory judgment and ruled against SCO's claims of slander and breach of implied covenant of good faith. He also said that SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and other companies that use Linux. He ordered the case closed.
(PCWorld, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 11, In Salt Lake City an underground pipeline broke sending oil into a creek that ultimately flows into the Great Salt Lake. The pipeline was shut off the next day as the 21,000 gallon spill coated some 300 birds at area creeks. Chevron said it would pay for cleanup.
(SFC, 6/14/10, p.A6)
2010 Jun 18, In Utah death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner (49), who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men, suffered the same fate as he was executed by a team of marksmen, the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years.
(AP, 6/18/10)
2010 Jun 26, In Utah 5 young people from Ogden, aged 16-22, were killed as they tried to pass another vehicle while returning from a camping trip.
(SSFC, 6/27/10, p.A8)
2010 Jul 12, In Utah a list of over 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants living in the state was received by law enforcement and politicians around the state. On Jul 16 the ACLU of Utah commended the swift action of Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in responding to the legitimate public outcry and widespread demand that they investigate the extraordinary breach of privacy by state employees, which became publicly known earlier this week. 2 women, working for the state’s main welfare agency, had recently sent the stolen names, addresses, Social Security numbers - and even the due dates of expectant mothers - of some 1,300 mostly Latino people whom they suspected of being in the state illegally, to newspapers along with a letter urging their immediate deportation.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vjl89x0)(Econ, 8/7/10, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/334kjoh)
2010 Aug 9, In USA a tour bus crash killed 3 Japanese tourists. Driver Yasushi Mikuni (26) was later charged with 10 felony counts of negligent driving and one misdemeanor charge of having marijuana residue in his system.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Aug 27, Scott Curley (23) shot and killed Utah Kane county Deputy Brian Harris (41) following an attempted robbery. Harris was shot near Fredonia, just south of the Utah border. Curley escaped into the desert area along the Utah-Arizona border. Curley was captured on Aug 30 in Kanab, Utah.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 19, The Utah Army National Guard ignited a fire at Camp Williams, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, while practicing with a .50 caliber machine gun. At least 3 homes were destroyed as the fire went out of control.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 9, In southern Utah a small plane crashed and killed 2 National park Service law enforcement agents in the Dixie National Forest.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2011 Feb 10, In Utah first-degree felony count of sodomy on a child and two second-degree felony counts of sexual abuse of a child were filed against Keith Brown (55), father of the 5 Browns classical piano group. The Brown children severed their professional relationship with their father in October of 2008.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Apr 29, The state of Utah filed a lawsuit against the federal government over an Obama administration plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Jun 14, Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, announced that he will be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Huntsman, considered a moderate, served as President Obama’s ambassador to China before resigning a month ago, in preparation for his presidential run.
(AP, 6/14/11)
2011 Aug 30, The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced that they had arrested 7 men in Utah, alleged members of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. Cashes of guns, cash and drugs were seized.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.40)
2011 Sep 10, In Utah Alexis Rasmussen (16) went missing in North Ogden. She had been babysitting for Eric and Dea Millerburg, who have since been arrested on drug-related charges. Rasmussen’s body was found on Oct 18 in a shallow grave in North Ogden.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/3lsozqn)
2011 Sep 24, In Utah thousands of people stripped to their underwear and ran through Salt Lake City to protest what they called the "uptight" laws of Utah. Guiness World Records later said 2,270 people participated breaking a previous record of 550 set last year in Great Britain.
(AP, 9/25/11)(SFC, 10/7/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 27, In Utah Uta von Schwedler (49) was found dead in her bathtub in Salt Lake City. On March 12, 2015 her ex-husband, pediatrician John Brickman Wall (51), was convicted of her murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/poayapn)(SFC, 3/14/15, p.A7)
2011 Dec 12, In Utah some 4000-5000 migratory birds, eared grebes, were killed or injured after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot, football fields and other snow-covered areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one state wildlife expert called the worst mass bird crash she'd ever seen. A high-profile crash in Arkansas in January killed about 4,500 birds, mainly red-winged blackbirds.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 19, Fierce winds and snow that caused fatal road accidents and shuttered highways in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The storm was blamed for at least six deaths.
(AP, 12/20/11)
2011 Dec 28, Two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions were arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder. Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody and held in the Camden County jail. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City. Each was awaiting an extradition hearing.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2012 Jan 4, In Utah Army veteran Matthew David Stewart killed a police officer and wounded 5 others as authorities descended on his home in a marijuana raid.
(http://tinyurl.com/paqc29c)(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2012 Jan 18, The US Army Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah burned its last hard weapons containing mustard gas. This marked the destruction of about 90% of its aging chemical weapons, accumulated during the Cold War.
(SFC, 1/19/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 19, Top Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke (29), an early gold medal favorite ahead of the 2014 Olympics, died at a Utah hospital from injuries she suffered in a training fall.
(Reuters, 1/19/12)
2012 Feb 5, Josh Powell, under investigation for the 2009 disappearance in Utah of his wife, Susan Powell, was killed with his two sons, Charles (7) and Braden (5), in a fire at his home in Graham, Washington. Police said he set the fire intentionally just after receiving his sons for what was to be a supervised visit.
(SFC, 2/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Mar 23, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill demanding that the federal government relinquish control of public lands in the state by 2014.
(SFC, 3/24/12, p.A7)
2012 May 26, In southern Utah a small Cessna plane was found crashed some 300 feet from the runway of the municipal airport at St. George. 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 5/28/12, p.A8)
2012 Jun 3, A Lockheed P2V aerial firefighter crashed in Utah killing 2 pilots. Another P2V, fighting a wildfire south of Reno, crash-landed at Minden-Tahoe Airport.
(SFC, 6/4/12, p.A8)
2012 Jul 13, Colorado police found the body of Christina Cornejo (30) in Colorado Springs. She had been stabbed multiple times. On July 17 Suspect and boyfriend Brian Hedglin (40) was found dead having shot himself in the head after he crashed a plane at Utah’s St. George Municipal Airport.
(SFC, 7/18/12, p.A8)
2012 Jul 16, Stephen R. Covey (79), Utah-based motivational speaker and author of the best-selling "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" (1989), died in Idaho Falls.
(AP, 7/16/12)(Econ, 7/21/12, p.58)
2012 In Utah the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints clarified that church health practices do not prevent members from drinking caffeinated soft drinks.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
2013 Jan 12, Three men from Utah died when their plane went down near Paris, Texas.
(SFC, 1/14/13, p.A5)
2013 Mar 18, In Utah Willard Bay State Park officials closed down the facility on the northeastern edge of the Great Salt Lake and evacuated two campers and the park manager’s family after around 4,200 to 6,300 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the pipeline just north of the park.
(www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56030315-78/bay-lake-spill-salt.html.csp)
2013 Apr 2, In Utah survivalist Troy James Knapp (45) was arrested after eluded authorities for 6 years. He had moved from cabin to cabin across the Utah mountains, taking food and weapons and leaving notes to brag about it.
(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 May 4, In Utah soccer referee Ricardo Portillo (46) died following an April 27 assault by teen-age player (17). On May 8 the teen was charged with homicide by assault.
(SFC, 5/9/13, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/cqgz2xl)
2013 May 24, In Utah Army veteran Matthew David Stewart (39) charged with killing a police officer on Jan 4, 2012, was found dead hanging from a bedsheet in his cell in Ogden.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 5, Thomas Momson, head of the Mormon Church, said that worldwide membership in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has reached 15 million.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 11, Two Utah Boy Scout leaders pushed a large rock off a rock formation at Goblin Valley State Park. Glenn Taylor and Dave Hall said it was loose and feared it was dangerous. They soon faced possible criminal charges and were removed from their posts a Boy Scout leaders.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 6, Scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Dec 13, A US federal judge struck down parts of Utah’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional. Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that part of the state law prohibiting cohabitation violated the First amendment. He left standing the state’s ability to prohibit multiple marriages.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 20, A US federal judge scrapped Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. The ban was approved by 66% of state voters in 2004.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 24, A US federal appeals court ruled that same-sex marriages can continue in Utah, denying a request from the state to halt them.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2014 Jan 8, The Utah governor’s office said that the state will not recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages performed over the past two weeks as it appeals a legal ruling that had overturned the state’s ban on such unions.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 10, The US Justice Dept. said it would recognize as lawful the marriages of 1,300 same-sex couple in Utah, even though the state is largely refusing to do so.
(SFC, 1/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Jan 16, In Utah 5 people were found dead after co-workers reported that police officer Joshua Boren (34) failed to show up for his shift at the Lindon Police Dept. Boren had shot and killed his wife, mother-in-law and two children before killing himself. Kelly Boren had just confronted her husband about raping her and told him their marriage was over.
(SFC, 1/18/14, p.A4)(AP, 7/8/14)
2014 Jan 25, In Utah some 4,000 protesters gathered in Salt lake City to protests against poor air quality.
(Econ, 2/1/14, p.24)
2014 Jan 30, In Utah Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui (27) shot and killed Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride following a 50-mile chase near Eagle Mountain. A 2nd deputy was wounded. Garcia was also wounded and died the next day. Garcia’s girlfriend Meagan Grunwald (17) survived the shootout and faced nearly a dozen charges in the crime rampage. In April she pleaded innocent to all charges. On May 9, 2015, Grunwald was convicted and faced up to life in prison.
(SFC, 2/1/14, p.A6)(SFC, 5/13/14, p.A5)(AP, 5/9/15)
2014 Mar 25, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law that allows parents of children with severe epilepsy to obtain marijuana extract to help with seizures.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 10, In Utah Iron County workers accompanied by a US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staffer set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until they can be moved to BLM facilities for adoption. Cattle ranchers blamed the protected wild horses for destroying vegetation crucial to ranchers who pay to graze their cattle on the land.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 13, In Utah Megan Huntsman (39) was arrested after police reported tiny bodies stuffed into separate cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home in Pleasant Grove. She had 7 babies between 1996 and 2006. Estranged husband Darren West discovered the bodies a day earlier while cleaning out the garage. On April 28 she was charged with 6 counts of 1st degree murder. On April 20, 2015, Huntsman was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/14/14, p.A8)(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)(SFC, 4/21/15, p.A5)
2014 May 16, In Utah 4 undocumented immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador were killed when a crowded van crashed on Interstate 70. Agents detained three of four men who survived the crash and continued to search for a woman who fled the scene.
(AP, 5/21/14)
2014 Jun 5, Utah’s Wildlife Board voted 3-2 to hold its first ever crow hunt this fall as authorities try to contain the noise and mess from a population of the big, black birds that officials say has tripled over the last 12 years. Crows are protected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, but about 45 states allow them to be hunted.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Utah John Swallow (51) and Mark Shurtleff (56), both former state attorneys general, were arrested on a battery of bribery charges.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 11, Utah police in Saratoga Springs shot and killed Darrien Hunt (22), an African American, as he ran away after swinging a samurai-style sword that was part of his Japanese anime costume.
(SFC, 10/30/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 19, A Utah state judge sentenced Martin MacNeill (58), a former doctor, to serve at least 17 years in prison on chrages related to the 2007 death of his wife.
(SFC, 9/20/14, p.A10)
2014 Sep 27, In Utah the bodies of two parents and three of their children were found in a home in Springfield. Cause of death was yet unknown.
(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 29, In Utah former FBI agent Robert Lustyik Jr. (52) pleaded guilty to charges that he derailed an investigation into military contract fraud by making a suspect appear to be a key counterintelligence source.
(AFP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 4, In Utah the Mormon church opened its biannual conference bringing some 100,000 church members to Salt Lake City to listen to words of guidance and inspiration from the faith's leaders. Residents from 64 countries were expected during the two-day conference.
(AP, 10/4/14)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2014 Dec 16, Lena Jacobs Coombs (48), Utah-based former marketing director for Symantec, an anti-virus software maker, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $1 million to fund personal expenses and vacations. On April 22, 2015, Coombs was sentenced to three years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $915,412 in restitution.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.C5)(SFC, 4/24/15, p.C3)
2014 Nikola Motor Company was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, to make electric and hydrogen powered cars. The company went public in June, 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Corporation)(Econ., 9/19/20, p.60)
2015 Feb 10, John Dehlin (45), a Mormon who gained notoriety over the past decade for running a website that offers doubting Latter-day Saints a forum to chat, announced that Utah church leaders have kicked him out of the faith for apostasy.
(SFC, 2/11/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 10, Utah’s legislature passed a law to bring back guns for executing those on death row.
(Econ., 3/21/15, p.23)
2015 Mar 23, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert gave his stamp of approval to a law that brings back the firing squad in the only state that has used it in the past 40 years.
(AP, 3/24/15)
2015 Mar 24, Google announced that it would be bringing Google Fiber to Salt Lake City, which actually will make it the second city in Utah to have access to the service. Google first announced it was bringing Fiber to Provo, Utah back in 2013.
(BGR News, 3/25/15)
2015 Jul 1, Episcopalians, meeting in Salt Lake at the Episcopal General Convention, voted to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples.
(SFC, 7/2/15, p.A7)
2015 Sep 15, In Utah 12 people were killed after flash floods struck the town of Hildale overnight. Another 7 people were killed in nearby Zion national Park.
(AFP, 9/15/15)(SFC, 9/16/15, p.A7)(SFC, 9/18/15, p.A6)
2016 Jan 20, Federal lawyers made opening statements in a case targeting the polygamous towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, where the dominant religion is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(SFC, 1/21/16, p.A12)
2016 Mar 28, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed legislation requiring doctors to give anesthesia to women having an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, based on the premise that a fetus can feel pain at that point.
(SFC, 3/29/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 19, The US attorney’s office issued a warrant for polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs, who fled home confinement in Salt Lake City pending trial on charges in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme.
(SFC, 6/21/16, p.A6)
2016 Jun, In Utah an elderly man infected with the Zika virus died late this month. He was the first Zika-infected person to die in the continental US. A relative who cared for the man was soon diagnosed with the virus.
(SFC, 7/19/16, p.A4)
2016 Sep, In Utah a new Salt Lake City atheist group, the Sunday Assembly, began offering non-believers a church-like service that offers music, readings and community for those who don't belong to the state's dominant religion, Mormonism, or other faith groups. There's now more than 70 Sunday Assemblies in the US and around the world.
(AP, 12/26/16)
2016 Nov 18, In Utah an air ambulance crashed late today in Elko, killing all three crew members and a patient aboard.
(SSFC, 11/20/16, p.A10)
2016 Dec 20, Utah’s Deseret News reported that federal agents last week arrested two Utah sisters accused of using their money order businesses in the Salt Lake City area to launder an estimated $1 million for Mexican drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/20/16)
2016 Dec 28, Pres. Obama designated two new national monuments. The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah encompassed 300,000 acres. Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada protected 1.35 million acres.
(SFC, 12/29/16, p.A5)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.27)
2017 Jan 13, The US Environmental Protection Agency denied $1.2 billion in claims for economic losses stemming from a 2015 toxic wastewater spill accidentally triggered by the agency at a defunct Colorado mine, that fouled waterways in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
(AP, 1/13/17)
2017 Mar 21, A legal officer at Cambodia's Customs Department said Cambodia has suspended the export of human breast milk by Utah-based Ambrosia Labs Ltd., a business pioneered last year by former Mormon missionary Ryan Newell. On March 28 the ban was made permanent.
(AP, 3/21/17)(AP, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 23, Utah’s Rep. Gov. Gary Herbert said he plans to approve a measure lowering the state’s blood alcohol limit to .05% from .08%.
(SFC, 3/24/17, p.A6)
2017 Sep 21, In Utah Brigham Young Univ., owned by the Mormon church, ended a six-decade ban on caffeinated soft drinks on campus.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
2017 Oct 10, Utah police Officer Jeff Payne was fired after being seen on video roughly handcuffing Nurse Alex Wubbels and dragging her from a hospital because she refused to allow a blood draw per hospital policy. Nurse Wubbels later reached a $500,000 settlement with Salt Lake City and the university that runs the hospital.
(SFC, 10/11/17, p.A7)(SFC, 11/1/17, p.A5)
2017 Oct 27, US Pres. Donald Trump said he is approving the recommendation of Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments in Utah along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.
(SFC, 10/28/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 30, In Utah Chinese student Chen Wei Guo was killed in a fatal carjacking near the Univ. of Utah late today, causing a campus-wide lockdown as police continue to search for suspected gunman Austin Boutain (24).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump visited Utah to announce big cuts to the state's sprawling wilderness national monuments. Bears Ears National Monument will shrink to 220,000 acres from 1.35 million, and Grand Staircase Escalante will be cut to about half its current size. The move triggered legal challenges from tribes and environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2018 Jan 16, In Utah the Mormon church appointed Russell Nelson (93), a former heart surgeon, as its new president.
(SFC, 1/17/18, p.A4)
2018 Mar 1, Canadian outdoor outfitter Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) said it will stop selling outdoor sports items made by brands owned by Utah-based Vista Outdoor that also sells assault-style rifles.
(AFP, 3/1/18)
2018 Mar 20, The US Department of Interior auctioned off more than 51,000 acres (21,000 hectares) in southeastern Utah for oil and gas development, over objections from conservationists.
(Reuters, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 31, Utah's Mormon church made history and brought diversity to its leadership panel by selecting its first Latin American apostle and first apostle of Asian ancestry to help set church policy and oversee the faith's business interests.
(SSFC, 4/1/18, p.A8)
2018 May 11, In Utah a Tesla sedan rear-ended a Fire Dept. truck in South Jordan without breaking before impact. It was unclear if the car's autopilot feature was engaged.
(SFC, 5/14/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 20, In Utah 10-month-old Alex Hidalgo Jr. was stabbed multiple times and found covered in blood in a garbage can. Alex Hidalgo (37) of Ogden was arrested the next day and charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice.
(SFC, 7/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 13, In Utah Duane Youd flew a small plane into his own house hours after being arrested and released on bail for assaulting his wife. Youd died in the crash, but his wife and child survived.
(SFC, 8/14/18, p.A5)
2018 Sep 19, In Utah Wanda Barzee (72), the woman who helped kidnap Elizabeth Smart (14) in 2002 and stood by as the girl was sexually assaulted by her then husband Brian David Mitchell, was released after serving 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 9/20/18, p.A4)
2018 Oct 4, In Utah the Mormon church joined lawmakers, the governor and advocates to back a deal that would legalize medical marijuana in the state.
(SFC, 10/5/18, p.A7)
2018 Oct 22, In Utah a dump truck crossed a highway median near Heber and collided with an oncoming pickup truck, killing all six men in the pickup. Jamie Don McKenzie (41), the driver of the truck, was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. Prescription pills and open containers of alcohol were found inside the truck.
(SFC, 10/22/18, p.A6)
2018 Nov 3, In Afghanistan Maj. Brent Taylor (39) was fatally shot by one of his Afghan trainees in Kabul. Another US military member was wounded. Initial reports indicated the attacker was immediately killed by other Afghan Forces. In 2020 an Army report said Afghan commando Sgt. Asfar Khan (20) had planned the killing for weeks. Taylor was the Utah mayor of Ogden serving in the National Guard.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)(AP, 11/5/18)(AP, 6/8/20)
2018 Nov 6, Voters in Utah joined the growing number of US states to legalize medical marijuana.
(SSFC, 11/11/18, p.A8)
2018 Nov 10, In eastern Utah two workers were electrocuted and a third injured when industrial equipment at a potash mine touched a power line near Moab.
(SFC, 11/12/18, p.A5)
2018 Nov 24, In Utah police Officer David Romrell (31) died after he was intentionally struck by a driver while responding to a burglary call in Salt Lake City. Car driver Felix Anthony Calata was fatally shot by police and an accomplice was arrested.
(SFC, 11/26/18, p.A4)
2019 Apr 4, In Utah the Church of the Latter Day Saints repealed rules unveiled in 2015 that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and made gay marriage a sin worthy of expulsion.
(SFC, 4/5/19, p.A5)
2019 Apr 30, Sterling Van Wagenen (71), a filmmaker who co-founded the Sundance Film festival, pleaded guilty in Utah to sexual abuse of a child.
(SFC, 5/1/19, p.A6)
2019 May 8, In Utah the Salt Lake Tribune announced plans to become a nonprofit in an effort to ensure long-term stability.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.A6)
2019 Jun 20, Univ. of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck (23) was reported missing. On June 28 Ayoola Ajayi (31) was arrested by a Salt Lake City SWAT team after burned evidence was found at his home. Lueck's body was found on July 3 in a canyon 80 miles from Salt Lake City. On July 10 Ajayi ws chrged with murder and kidnapping.
(SFC, 6/29/19, p.A6)(SFC, 7/6/19, p.A6)(SFC, 7/11/19, p.A6)
2019 Jun, In Utah investigations began to focus on white supremacist gangs including Soldiers of Aryan Culture, Silent Aryan Warriors and Nobel Elect Thugs, all with roots in the Utah prison system.
(SFC, 10/19/20, p.A4)
2019 Jul 26, The US Bureau of Land Management announced a plan to allow off-road vehicles access to archaeologically sensitive land at Utah's Bears Ears National Monument that houses sacred tribal sites.
(AP, 7/26/19)
2019 Aug 30, Aaron Shamo (29) of Utah was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar opioid ring that sent hundreds of thousands of potentially deadly pills across the country in a scheme that authorities said helped fuel the nation's opioid epidemic. Prosecutors said Shamo bought the powerful opioid fentanyl online from Chinese manufacturers, pressed it into fake oxycodone pills and sold it on the dark web with the help of a handful of friends.
(AP, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 20, In southern Utah a tour bus crashed near Bryce Canyon National Park killing at least four people.
(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A5)
2019 Sep 24, Alex Whipple (22), a Utah man who pleaded guilty to killing and sexually assaulting his niece, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Whipple killed Elizabeth "Lizzy" Shelley (5) on May 25, after his sister let him spend the night at the family home.
(AP, 9/25/19)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 9, It was reported that the assessor of Arizona's Maricopa county has been indicted in an adoption fraud case, accused of arranging for dozens of pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to come to the US to give their children up for adoption. Utah also has charged Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen with 11 felony counts, including human smuggling, sale of a child and communications fraud.
(AP, 10/9/19)
2019 Dec 23, The Trump administration said it will allow Medicaid expansion with a work requirement in Utah, a decision that came despite courts taking a dim view of the requirement in other states.
(AP, 12/24/19)
2020 Jan 8, Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky excoriated a briefing from top Trump administration officials on the targeted drone strike that led to the death of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force.
(CBS News, 1/8/20)
2020 Jan 17, In Utah a boy armed with a gun killed three children and a woman inside a home in Grantsville, then accompanied a fifth victim to a hospital, where he was arrested.
(AP, 1/18/20)
2020 Jan 22, Utah became the US 19th state to ban the practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ children.
(SFC, 1/23/20, p.A6)
2020 Jan 27, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told reporters that he thinks new revelations from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton will increase the number of Republican senators who will vote in favor of calling at least Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.
(Reuters, 1/27/20)
2020 Jan 31, Utah Senator Mitt Romney joined fellow moderate Susan Collins as the only ones among the 53 Republican senators in the 100-seat chamber to support voting for witnesses. This left Democrats still short of the US Senate majority required and paving the way for Trump's swift acquittal.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Feb 15, It was reported that the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to fund 11,000 miles (17,703 km) of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to help control wildfires.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Mar 6, Utah confirmed its first coronavirus case.
(Good Morning America, 3/7/20)
2020 Mar 16, In Utah gas station owner Lev Dermen was found guilty by a jury on 10 counts that included money laundering and mail fraud. Dermen and polygamists Jacob and Isiah Kingston had filed false claims for over $1 billion in refundable renewable fuel tax credits. Jacob Kingston testified against Dermen at the trial. The Kingstons and two other family members accepted plea deals this year.
(https://tinyurl.com/cj3r3hm9)(SFC, 6/23/21, p.B3)
2020 Mar 18, A 5.7-magnitude earthquake shook Salt Lake City and its suburbs early today, sending spooked residents fleeing their homes, knocking out power for tens of thousands and closing the city's airport.
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Apr 3, Utah's Zion National Park was closed to the public to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
(SFC, 4/6/20, p.A4)
2020 Apr 28, In Utah a left-leaning nonprofit group filed a price gouging complaint with state regulators, arguing the $40 per pack drug was grossly overpriced. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert had defended the state’s $800,000 purchase of 20,000 packets of hydroxychloroquine compounded with zinc, but later ordered an investigation of a no-bid contract with a local company that had been promoting the drugs.
(AP, 4/28/20)
2020 May 18, The Navajo Nation, spanning across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, reported 69 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 4,071.
(Good Morning America, 5/19/20)
2020 May 23, In Utah police fatally shot Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal (22). Officers fired 34 shots at Palacios-Carbajal, striking him 13 - 15 times, after chasing him while he ran away carrying a gun and repeatedly dropped it and retrieved it.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Bernardo_Palacios-Carbajal)
2020 Jun 9, It was reported that Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted COVID-19 rises of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days.
(Reuters, 6/9/20)
2020 Jul 9, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency late today in response to protests in Salt Lake city that erupted after authorities said a fatal police shooting in May was justified.
(SFC, 7/11/20, p.A3)
2020 Jul 10, The Navajo Nation, spanning parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, began a weekend shutdown as the death from the coronavirus rose to 396 with nearly 8,100 cases.
(SFC, 7/13/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 22, More than 35,000 cases of the coronavirus have been reported in Utah, and over 250 people have died. The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested. Officials said the Salt Lake City area is bucking a surge after the county issued a mandate a month ago for people to wear masks.
(AP, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 25, In Utah three people including a 9-month-old were killed and multiple people injured after a small airplane crashed in West Jordan, a Salt Lake City suburb.
(AP, 7/26/20)
2020 Aug 1, American actor and singer Wilford Brimley (85) died in Utah. He is best known for his roles in the Oscar-winning movie "Cocoon" (1985) and "The Firm" (1993).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilford_Brimley)(AP, 8/2/20)
2020 Sep 22, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said he supports voting to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court, all but ensuring President Donald Trump has the backing to push his choice to confirmation over Democratic objections that it's too close to the November election.
(AP, 9/22/20)
2020 Sep 24, Three US states reported record one-day increases in new COVID-19 cases. Montana reported 330 new coronavirus cases, South Dakota recorded 463 new cases. Utah's governor said the state set a one-day record with 1,198 new cases.
(Reuters, 9/24/20)
2020 Oct 2, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
(AP, 10/2/20)
2020 Oct 7, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala debated in Salt Lake City. Pence and Harris traded barbs through plexiglass shields in a debate dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. Pence echoed many of President Donald Trump’s falsehoods in the one and only debate with Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
(AP, 10/8/20)
2020 Oct 7, In Utah tech worker Ayoola A. Ajayi (32) pleaded guilty to strangling college student Mackenzie Lueck (23), whose disappearance over a year ago sparked a search that ended with the discovery of her charred remains in his backyard.
(NBC News, 10/8/20)
2020 Oct 16, It was reported that federal authorities in Utah have charged 21 white supremacist gang members and associates with distributing drugs and firearms around the state.
(NY Daily News, 10/16/20)
2020 Oct 22, Utah reported a new record number of COVID-19 cases. Gov. Gary Hart again pleaded with people to adhere to mask mandates in place in 21 of the state's 29 counties.
(https://tinyurl.com/yypqx3hx)(SFC, 10/26/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 22, The University of Utah acknowledged for the first time that the 2018 on-campus murder of track star Lauren McCluskey was “preventable" and agreed to pay her family $13.5 million to settle a lawsuit in the case.
(NY Daily News, 10/22/20)
2020 Oct 27, In Utah the 170-year-old Deseret News said it will stop daily publishing starting next year. A day earlier the Salt Lake Tribune made a similar announcement.
(SFC, 10/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Nov 3, Residents of Nebraska and Utah decided to strip their constitutions of unenforceable provisions that allowed slavery as a punishment for criminal convictions.
(AP, 11/8/20)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 8, Utah state Gov. Gary Herbert declared a new state of emergency to address hospital overcrowding in response to weeks of stress on its hospital networks due to a surge of novel coronavirus cases.
(Reuters, 11/8/20)
2020 Nov 18, A Utah Department of Public Safety showed a metal monolith in the ground in a remote area of red rock. It disappeared less than 10 days after it was spotted by wildlife biologists performing a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep.
(AP, 11/29/20)
2020 Dec 18, The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added new language to the faith's handbook imploring members to root out prejudice and racism, adding significance and permanence to recent comments by top leaders on one of the most sensitive topics in the church's history. The faith’s past ban on Black men in the lay priesthood, which stood until 1978, was disavowed in a 2013 essay. The church never issued a formal apology.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 31, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News printed their final daily newspapers as they joined others that made the same decision in response to declining print and circulation revenues. The newspaper had printed daily for 149 years.
(AP, 12/31/20)
2021 Jan 7, PayPal Holdings Inc's venture arm said it has made an investment in Salt Lake City, Utah-based tech startup Taxbit, which helps consumers and businesses calculate the taxes owed on cryptocurrency holdings.
(Reuters, 1/7/21)
2021 Feb 6, In Utah four skiers were killed and four others were rescued near Salt Lake City in the deadliest snowslide in the United States in seven year.
(Reuters, 2/7/21)
2021 Mar 15, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah in a public letter urged American spectators, companies and diplomats to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, to punish China for its human rights abuses. He favored that approach over an athlete boycott.
(NY Times, 3/15/21)
2021 Apr 14, Scorpion, an internet marketing services provider, said has raised $100 million in funds from investment firm Bregal Sagemount to expand its technology and customer offerings. Utah-based Scorpion recently acquired CanlRank, a software company that uses artificial intelligence to provide customers with locally relevant search engine optimization (SEO) insights, for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 4/14/21)
2021 Apr 20, Utah-based IT company Ivanti said in a statement that the hackers in China took advantage of the flaw in its Pulse Connect Secure suite of virtual private networking devices to break into the systems of "a very limited number of customers." A fix for the issue would not be available until early May. It was later reported that dozens of other high-value entities, not yet named, were also targeted as part of the breach of Pulse Secure, which is used by many companies and governments for secure remote access to their networks.
(Reuters, 4/20/21)(AP, 6/14/21)
2021 May 29, In northern Utah one man died and another man suffered severe burns when their single-engine aircraft crashed this morning near the Powder Mountain area near Eden.
(AP, 5/29/21)
2021 Jun 18, The US Southwest baked under an unrelenting heatwave for a fifth day, putting power systems to the test as more records were expected to be broken before a moderating trend sets in next week. The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for five states - California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and part of Colorado.
(Reuters, 6/18/21)
2021 Jun 19, Sazgin Baran Korkmaz, a Turkish businessman, was arrested in Austria by the US Justice Dept. in connection with a biodiesel fraud scheme operated by a Utah business that stole nearly $500 million in government funds. Korkmaz was suspected of laundering over $133 million through bank accoutns he controlled in Turkey and Luxembourg.
(SFC, 6/23/21, p.B3)
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Subject = Utah
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