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. 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 Utah
mayor Brent Taylor (39), who was also a Utah Army National Guard
major training commandos in Afghanistan, 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.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)(AP, 11/5/18)
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)
