Browse Items (31 total)

Frequent droughts and a growing population continue to raise the stakes for water access in Utah. Learn about a drawn-out conflict over water in Salt Lake City that shows how tensions between agricultural and municipal water users are hardly new. In…

Salt Lake City’s bee inspector is an official position that reminds us of Salt Lake County’s very real agricultural past.Few people these days know that Salt Lake County has a bee inspector. Hiring someone to watch bees in Utah’s most urban…

Ghost Towns of the old west are generally relics of the mining industry, but Old La Sal in San Juan County is a now-deserted cow town.Situated in the northeast corner of San Juan County at the foot of the La Sal Mountains, old La Sal was once a…

The evil queen gave Snow White a poisonous apple that sent her into a magical deep sleep, but in Tooele County, a mining company used run-off water polluted with heavy metals to grow their toxic orchards. In 1933, a Tooele mining company called the…

When the United States was was created in the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson had a vision of a nation built by individual family farmers. Here in Utah – we love farmers. But did we really live up to Jefferson’s ideal? For many in the United States'…

A federal agent in Colorado tried to force a band of Utes to take up farming. This would come to impact not just Utes in Utah, but national Indian policy.The experience of the Ute people was a crucial factor in the development of national policies…

A bird once considered to be helpful pest control, the invasive English Sparrow made it on a legislative “hit list” in the 1800s.Most Utahns have heard the tale of how in 1848 a flock of California gulls swooped down and gorged themselves on a…

If you could provide drinking water for thousands of people by displacing twenty-seven farming families, would you do it? Utah leaders faced this very dilemma in the 1950s. Find out what they decided. How would you weigh the cost of progress? As…

This Thanksgiving, you might enjoy a meal that includes a roasted turkey. What are the chances it was born and raised here in Utah?Few people might associate Utah with one of America’s favorite holiday meals: turkeys. But, the turkey industry in…

The United States federal government controls about 65% of land in Utah. The goal of maintaining these lands for public use tends to polarize Utahns. But there was a time when Utah leaders were not averse to federal regulation of public lands.…

Potato growing clubs became all the rage in the early 20th century as interest in a formal agricultural education grew. Agricultural work is critical to rural Utah’s history. But, it wasn’t until Utah State Agricultural College -- known as USAC…