Utah Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

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

The Territorial Statehouse in Fillmore (pop. 2,253) is the oldest governmental building in Utah but was never completed. The south wing was built in time for the December 1855 meeting of the territorial legislature, but before another full legislative session met again, the seat of government had returned to Salt Lake City.

first appeared: 1/27/2002

Utah’s fourth governor, Simon Bamberger, became only the second Jew to be elected a governor in the United States, when he attained the position in 1916. Mormon Apostle Brigham H. Roberts nominated him in a speech that called for the end of selecting candidates based on church affiliation.

first appeared: 1/20/2002

Tooele (pop. 22,502) gets its name from a valley spelled “Tuilla” on surveying maps created by Capt. Howard Stansbury in 1849-50. That name may have originated from American Indians, who the early pioneers referred to as “Tooelians.”

first appeared: 1/13/2002

Veterans Memorial State Park, south of Bluffdale (pop. 4,700), includes a cemetery, chapel, wall of honor, and museum featuring military displays on its 30-acre site.

first appeared: 1/13/2002

Utah’s Jordan River was named after the Biblical Jordan River in 1847 by Heber C. Kimball. Like the river in the Middle East, the Utah waterway flows from a freshwater lake (Utah Lake) through fertile valleys before emptying into a “dead sea” (Great Salt Lake).

first appeared: 1/6/2002

This Is The Place State Park at Salt Lake City re-creates a Utah pioneer community between 1847 and 1869. The park includes Old Deseret, a living history village, as well as the 1947 This Is The Place Monument commemorating the arrival of the Mormon pioneers 100 years earlier.

first appeared: 12/30/2001

In the summer of 1847, an advance team of Mormons heading west from Nauvoo, Ill., hacked its way through a jungle of brush in Emigration Canyon, just before what is now Salt Lake City, on the last leg of their journey from the Missouri Valley.

first appeared: 12/23/2001

The San Rafael Swell west of the Green River provides spectacular views of the uplifted San Rafael Reef, whose crests rise 800 to 1,500 feet above the desert. Early American Indians, cowboys, and outlaws once roamed the many canyons, box (narrow) canyons, and side draws of the Swell.

first appeared: 12/16/2001

Shakespeare Arch in Kodachrome Basin State Park near Henrieville (pop. 159) wasn’t discovered until 1976. It can be seen by taking a short hike on Chimney Rock Trail.

first appeared: 12/9/2001

John Henry Weber, an early explorer and trapper, left his name on institutions and places all around the state. Born in Denmark, Weber immigrated first to Missouri, where he joined the Ashley-Henry Fur Company in 1822. He spent much of the next five years in what would become Utah. The Weber River, Weber County, Weber Canyon, and Weber State University are among the places bearing his name.

first appeared: 12/2/2001

Southwestern Utah’s Zion National Park, established in 1909 as Mukuntuweap National Monument before being expanded and renamed Zion National Park in 1919, is the home of the Zion snail, a tiny creature found nowhere else in the United States.

first appeared: 11/25/2001

Located in the northeastern part of the state, the city of Roosevelt (pop. 4,299) takes its name from Theodore Roosevelt, who was president when the town was established in 1906. Shortly after its founding by homesteaders, Roosevelt had a store, post office, school, and was home to the Dry Gulch Irrigation Co.

first appeared: 11/18/2001

Fort Buenaventura was established in the 1840s as the first permanent Anglo settlement in the Great Basin. Visitors to Fort Buenaventura State Park in Ogden can see a reconstruction of the fort, which includes the stockade and cabin replicas.

first appeared: 11/11/2001

In 1990, Indian ricegrass, a native perennial, was named the official state grass of Utah. It was given the designation because, in the past, ricegrass was an important food source, especially when the corn crop failed. Indian ricegrass seed was ground into meal or flour and made into bread.

first appeared: 11/11/2001

About 12 miles south of Moab is an attraction known as Hole ’N the Rock, a 5,000-square-foot, 14-room home carved out of solid sandstone. Huge pillars of rock inside provide support for the home that was built, beginning in 1945, over a 12-year period by Albert and Gladys Christensen. Some 50,000 cubic feet of sandstone had to be excavated to build the dwelling. Though Albert passed away in 1957 before the house was completed, Gladys continued—building the home and adjacent gift shop before she died in 1974.

first appeared: 11/4/2001

Visitors to Kodachrome Basin State Park near Cannonville (pop. 148) in southern Utah can witness sandstone chimneys that look gray, white, or various shades of red. The abundance of hues sparked the National Geographic Society to gain permission from Kodak to name the park after its color film process.

first appeared: 10/28/2001

The deep canyon wall of Cedar Breaks National Monument near Cedar City (pop. 20,527) shows the power of millions of years of erosion, uplift, and sedimentation. The wall is more than 2,000 feet deep, with the canyon rim more than 10,000 feet above sea level.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

Fascinating cave formations draw visitors to Timpanogos Cave National Monument in the Wasatch Mountains. A climb of more than 1,000 feet takes hikers to the cave entrance, which accesses three caverns that make up the cave system. Along the way, visitors see spectacular views of American Fork Canyon.

first appeared: 10/14/2001

Lester Wire is credited with inventing an early electric traffic signal. As head of the first traffic squad in Salt Lake City, he came up with a wooden box with lights that shone red and green in 1912.

first appeared: 10/7/2001

Bryce Canyon has been a haven for sightseers since the 1920s, when the Union Pacific Railroad constructed Bryce Canyon Lodge after the area was set aside as a national monument. Before the lodge, homesteaders Reuben and Minnie Syrett had built Tourist’s Rest for travelers coming to see the impressive stone formations in the area.

first appeared: 9/30/2001

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