Discover what’s in your own backyard!
With so much history here in Utah, you’re bound to bump into it sometimes!
Did you know that every day pieces of our collective human past are discovered in Utah? These discoveries are made by lots of people, from professional archaeologists working on our public lands to a child digging in their backyard and finding lost toys from the last homeowner’s children. Over the last few decades many interesting and significant stories have been found right under our streets or backyards, buried once by development but rediscovered, and then interpreted by archaeologists to help us better understand our place in modern Utah.
We’re betting you haven’t heard of many of these discoveries before! The evening news can’t capture all of them, and a lot of the information about these discoveries are preserved in technical reports that are difficult to access let alone understand. This series is an attempt to bring stories of Utah’s archaeological past, whether small or large, out of the shadows where all can enjoy.
What’s Coming Up in the Series
In this series, we hope to highlight some of this important but unknown work by professional archaeologists, agencies, and private companies compelled to document these discoveries as part of a legal process. Whether the federal Section 106 process, from the National Historic Preservation Act or the state-equivalent Utah Code Annotated 9-8-404, agencies must take into account their actions on cultural resources. In most cases the resources exist above-ground, and can be identified during the planning process, while other times there are still surprises underneath the soil, parking lots, or even roads.
If encountered, agencies employ professional archaeologists to document these discoveries as thoroughly as possible before they are removed as the project moves forward. In a way, this documentation is the permanent record of these interesting but unknown vignettes of our State’s history.
Over the first eight installments, we range from garbage dumps along the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, vernacular bridges, early water conveyance pipelines, and the extensive public archaeology work completed at the Provo Tabernacle, amongst others. We hope this series will bring some of these small stories to light and how they all add to our connection to the past.
Projected Release Dates & Authors:
- Monday, January 9: UTA 4th South Railroad Dump by Tiffany Collins, SWCA
- Monday, January 16: 600 North Plank Bridge by Mike Polk, Aspen Ridge Consultants
- Monday, January 23: Wood Stave Pipes by Chris Elison and Sarah Johnson Central Utah Water Conservancy District
- Monday, January 30: Provo Tabernacle by Ben Pykles/Ryan Saltzgiver, LDS Church History
- Monday, February 6: Wall Avenue Dump by Chris Merritt, SHPO
- Monday, February 13: European-American Burials at Coalville by Jon Baxter, Bighorn Archaeological Consultants
- Monday, February 20: Provo Fountain by Chris Merritt, SHPO
- Monday, February 27: Citizens Military Training Tents by Charles Shepherd, University of Utah
- Monday March 6: Park City’s Ontario Shop by Deb Miller, SHPO
- Monday March 13: A Trashy Summit County Backyard by Chris Merritt, SHPO
We hope to see you back here each Monday for a new look at archaeological discoveries from your own backyard! If you want reminders about this series, or if you want to share your own discoveries you can find us on social media.