Utah Trivia & Tidbits - Page 9

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

A screen legend of the 1920s, John Gilbert was born John Cecil Pringle on July 10, 1899, in Logan (pop. 42,670). His films include 1919’s Heart o’ the Hills with Mary Pickford; 1922’s Monte Cristo; 1925’s The Big Parade; and 1927’s Flesh and the Devil with Greta Garbo. His career faded with the end of silent films, and he passed away in 1936.

first appeared: 7/11/2004

Founded in 1868 by the Latter-day Saints, the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) sold more than $1.25 million of goods in its first year in Salt Lake City. The store, which sold everything from clothing and wagons to machinery and carpets, was designed to support home manufacturing.

first appeared: 6/27/2004

Built in 1977, the open-air Adams Shakespearean Theater in Cedar City (pop. 20,527) resembles Shakespeare’s Globe theater so closely that the British Broadcasting Corp. used it to film a series on the playwright in the 1980s. Cedar City also is home to the Utah Shakespearean Festival, which won the 2000 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater.

first appeared: 6/20/2004

The Bonneville Speedway, located on the Bonneville Salt Flats east of Wendover (pop. 1,537), hosted its first automobile speed record in 1914, when Teddy Tetzlaff drove a Blitzen Benz at 141.73 mph. Since then, the speedway has hosted many land speed records, including a rocket car that reached 622.4 mph in 1970.

first appeared: 6/13/2004

Utah’s Division of Water Resources reports that the state receives an average of 13 inches of precipitation annually, or enough water to fill the Great Salt Lake four times.

first appeared: 6/6/2004

The community of Mexican Hat (pop. 88) gains its name from a rock formation located to its north. There a 60-foot-wide rock sits on top of a smaller rock, creating a profile that looks like an upside-down sombrero.

first appeared: 5/30/2004

Created in the late 1800s to transport coal and supplies for the Park City mines, the Union Pacific rail line was turned over to Utah State Parks in 1989. Today, the 28-mile, non-motorized Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail State Park stretches from Park City (pop. 7,371) through Coalville (pop. 1,382) to Echo Reservoir.

first appeared: 5/23/2004

Cowboys in the late 1800s saw the shape of a horse’s head and ears on the east side of the Abajo Mountains near Monticello (pop. 1,958). Horse Head Peak is now a local landmark, with viewpoints in the City Park at Main and Center streets.

first appeared: 5/16/2004

U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame member Alf Engen was the national ski jumping champion eight times between 1931 and 1946, and was the national champion for downhill and slalom skiing in 1947. A pioneer in powder skiing techniques, he established the Alf Engen Ski School at Alta (pop. 370) after arriving there to teach in 1948.

first appeared: 5/9/2004

The state’s transportation system includes 43,155 miles of federal, state and local roads, 14 percent of which are classified as urban. The state’s three most important highways are Interstate 15 (north-south), Interstate 70 (east-west) and Interstate 80, which connects with I-15 in Salt Lake City.

first appeared: 5/2/2004

Plant life in the high desert of Canyonlands National Park near Moab (pop. 4,779) receives a helping hand from its biological soil crust: a living groundcover that consists of cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, green algae and microfungi. Cyanobacteria are one of the oldest known life forms, and create a web of fibers that join loose soil particles, reducing wind and water erosion, and capturing water and nutrients that desert plants can use.

first appeared: 4/25/2004

Rock drawings in Barrier Canyon in northeast Utah are thought to date back as early as 500 B.C. Artifacts suggest that a culture existed there in 4600 B.C. and possibly as early as 6700 B.C. According to the Utah Arts Council, the rock drawing artists were true painters, skillful in image-making, much like the European Stone Age cave painters.

first appeared: 4/18/2004

Professional basketball team the Utah Jazz began as the New Orleans Jazz in 1974. At the end of the 1978-79 season, the Jazz’s ownership bounced the team from New Orleans to Salt Lake City.

first appeared: 4/11/2004

Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park, south of Salt Lake City, is the site of a two-story adobe-and-frame hotel that was an overnight stop on the Overland Stage and Pony Express route.

first appeared: 4/11/2004

The Wasatch Mountains take their name from a Ute Indian name meaning “mountain pass” or “low place in a high mountain.”

first appeared: 4/4/2004

The Oljato Trading Post and Museum, located near the Arizona border in Monument Valley, was built of adobe in 1921. Most customers are local, Navajo is spoken, and barter is still carried out.

first appeared: 3/28/2004

The state has had an official cooking pot—the Dutch oven—since 1997. This three-legged, covered cast iron kettle was indispensable to pioneers.

first appeared: 3/21/2004

The American West Heritage Center is a 160-acre living history museum in Wellsville (pop. 2,728) dedicated to celebrating the Old West. It includes a historic farm, American Indian village, pioneer village, mountain man encampment, and other attractions.

first appeared: 3/14/2004

In 2002, the Spanish sweet onion became Utah’s official state vegetable after lobbying from the Lone Peak Elementary School. The Realms of Inquiry School students lobbied in favor of the sugar beet, so a compromise was reached in which the beet became the state’s official historic vegetable.

first appeared: 3/14/2004

Capt. Benjamin Bonneville, a pioneer for whom the Bonneville Salt Flats is named, never visited what is now Utah.

first appeared: 3/7/2004

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