Utah Trivia & Tidbits - Page 15

Looking for Utah trivia? Try our list Utah little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Rich County in northeastern Utah was named for Charles C. Rich, a Mormon apostle important to the early settlement of the area around Bear Lake.

first appeared: 6/2/2002

The prolific ballet career of William “Mr. C.” Christensen began with dance lessons from an uncle in Brigham City. Christensen went on to co-found the San Francisco Ballet Company and later returned to Utah to establish the University Theatre Ballet at the University of Utah in the early 1950s—the first company of its type to be established at an American university.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

More than nine million acres in Utah are national forest lands, with more than 40 percent of the state’s terrain administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for public use. Among Utah’s national forests are Dixie in the southeastern part of the state, Sawtooth in the north, Ashley in the east, and Fishlake in the southwest. BLM lands contain popular recreational areas, including Kokopelli and Slickrock mountain bike trails near Moab and the dunes of the Little Sahara Recreation Area in the state’s central region.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

Red Fleet State Park near Vernal (pop. 7,714) is the site of a dinosaur pathway nearly 200 million years old. Visitors enjoy the park’s red rock formations, as well as boating and fishing on Red Fleet Reservoir.

first appeared: 5/12/2002

The Little Sahara Recreation Area in Juab County is the only place where the giant four-wing saltbush—named for its four paper-like wings projecting at right angles—grows naturally. The plant’s large size (it can grow up to 10 feet tall) and rapid root growth contribute to its ability to survive in severe, sand-duned conditions.

first appeared: 5/5/2002

The honeybee became the official state insect in 1983 after a grade-school class pleaded its case. Having learned that Utah had a sizeable honeybee industry, the fifth-grade class at Ridgecrest Elementary School in Salt Lake County lobbied for the designation as part of a class project on the bee and on how state government works. Utah’s Mormon settlers first called the region “the Provisional State of Deseret.” Deseret is a Mormon word meaning honeybee.

first appeared: 4/28/2002

Hotel Utah, known as “the Grande Dame of Hotels,” opened on June 9, 1911, after two years of construction costing $2 million. The 10-story gleaming white luxury palace was a favorite of tourists, Hollywood stars, and U.S. presidents until it closed in 1987. The Mormon Church reopened it in 1993 as the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which houses a genealogy center, restaurants, and reception halls.

first appeared: 4/21/2002

The Utah Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City contains original fossil bones of Utah’s official state fossil, the allosaurus, as well as other dinosaurs. The bones were collected from the Cleveland-Lloyd quarry, south of Price (pop. 8,402).

first appeared: 4/14/2002

Wellsville (pop. 2,728) got its start when Mormon leader Brigham Young directed Peter Maughan to begin a settlement in the Cache Valley in 1850. The English-born Maughan immigrated to the United States in 1841 at the urging of Young, who had been on a mission trip to England. Before being named Wellsville, the town was called Maughan’s Fort.

first appeared: 4/7/2002

The state’s first newspaper was the Deseret News, a weekly first published on June 15, 1850, by the Mormons. American frontier journalism constantly confronted adversity, from vast isolation to increasing competition. Publishers pleaded with subscribers to pay their bills, often having to accept payment in produce or services.

first appeared: 3/31/2002

Martha Hughes Cannon, Utah’s first woman state senator, began her professional career as a schoolteacher at 14. Later she became a physician and practiced medicine in Salt Lake City. Cannon was active in the women’s suffrage movement and was elected to the state senate in 1896, serving two terms.

first appeared: 3/24/2002

The largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River is Utah Lake, located just west of Orem and Provo. The massive body of water is part of what was once Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric lake covering nearly half of what is now Utah.

first appeared: 3/17/2002

Early 20th century stage actress Maude Adams was born Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City in 1872—the daughter of an actress mother and banker-miner father. Adams made her first stage appearance at 9 months of age and soon after was accompanying her mother’s acting troupe throughout the West. She may be best known as the original Peter Pan. Scottish playwright James Barrie wrote the play specifically for Adams in 1905, when the actress was at the height of her popularity. She died in 1953.

first appeared: 3/10/2002

Juab County in western central Utah takes its name from a Ute word meaning level plain. It is home to spectacular sand dunes in Little Sahara Recreation Area, as well as the Tintic Mining District near Eureka. Once one of the richest mining areas in the land, the district produced $35 million worth of silver, gold, and other minerals in the late 1800s.

first appeared: 3/3/2002

Willard Bay State Park at Willard (pop. 1,630) is popular for year-round crappie, walleye, and catfish angling. The park, sitting on the Great Salt Lake flood plain in northern Utah, contains 9,900 acres of fresh water.

first appeared: 2/24/2002

The first group to cross Utah’s Salt Desert on the Hastings Cutoff route south of the Great Salt Lake was the Harlan-Young party, who made the journey in 1846, three weeks ahead of the Donner-Reed party. Party leader Lansford W. Hastings claimed his route was as much as 200 miles shorter than the northern route by way of Fort Hall.

first appeared: 2/17/2002

Utah is the home of a longtime champion blue spruce tree in the Ashley National Forest in Wasatch County. The tree, “Three Forks,” stands 127 feet tall and about 16 feet around.

first appeared: 2/10/2002

Five national parks—Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef—all lie within Utah. Collectively, the parks provide a bonanza of beauty, including spires, canyons, mesas, red rock, mountains, and lakes.

first appeared: 2/10/2002

The Quarry Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the country’s most significant National Park Service structures. The building, on a bed of fossilized remains, shows the park service’s use of modern architecture after World War II.

first appeared: 2/3/2002

Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab (pop. 4,779) offers spectacular scenery created over 150 million years, when the Colorado River began carving its way to the Gulf of California. The point is 6,000 feet above sea level and towers 2,000 feet over the river below.

first appeared: 1/27/2002

jump to page: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18

newspaper partner login create account

Recent

Popular

Recipes

Below are the most recent American Profile articles:

Below are the most recent, highest rated American Profile articles:

Below are the most recent, highest rated American Profile recipes:

Relish

Spry

Below are the most recent articles from our Relish sister site. Click on the "Spry" tab above to see the most recent articles from our other sister site.

Below are the most recent articles from our Spry sister site. Click on the "Relish" tab above to see the most recent articles from our other sister site.