Press Release
The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board (USHRAB), administered by the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service, is pleased to announce the Spring 2022 grant funding awards to six institutions preserving and providing access to Utah’s history.
Utah State University’s Eastern Prehistoric Museum was awarded $7,500 to preserve their archival records, particularly the oversized and rolled material and photographs. These documents include archaeological maps of the discovery site of the Utahraptor, the Canyonlands Needles District and mineral deposits. Dozens of binders of slides, negatives and prints will also be rehoused into archival boxes, cataloged and made available to the public. The oldest map in the collection dates back to 1878 while the bulk of the photos and maps are from the 1980s, the heyday of large excavations and dinosaur discoveries.
The Heritage Museum of Layton will be receiving $2,765 to preserve over 300 large format architectural drawings from William Allen. Allen was born in England and moved to Utah with his family in the 1860s. He studied architecture and worked throughout Davis County in the 1890s-1920s. As the only architect in the county for much of his career, he designed everything from bungalows to mansions and businesses to religious buildings. The museum plans to unroll and flatten the drawings, then arrange, describe, and catalog the records and rehouse them in appropriate storage. Future plans also include an exhibit.
The Big Cottonwood Canyon Historical Society (at The Brighton Institute) was awarded $1,304 to process and preserve three major historical collections: the Jolene Despain collection, documenting canyon buildings and community spaces; the Barbara Cameron collection, documenting the history of the Big Cottonwood Canyon Association; and the Chas Nickerson collection, containing photos and other historical records documenting the community council from 1950-1974. This project will result in important canyon history being properly preserved, described and made available to the public.
The Park City Museum was awarded $7,500 toward the digitization of thousands of images documenting the bridge between the historical mining town and a modern, world-class ski resort town. Kendall Webb, local photographer, maintained a business in Park City for nearly 30 years. His work, which consists of everything from studio portraits to high school football games and weddings to Boy Scout trips, is a one-of-a-kind window into Park City between the 1940s-1970s, a time when the town saw immense change. Webb’s images capture the shift between a declining mining industry and the beginnings of winter sports tourism and are one of the most important collections documenting the area’s history. The museum will be partnering with the University of Utah’s Marriott Library for digitization work, and the images will be available for viewing, along with thousands of others already digitized with previous grant funds, on the Mountain West Digital Library.
The Natural History Museum of Utah was awarded $7,435 to digitize hundreds of archaeological survey maps. This unique collection was primarily created by University of Utah anthropology and archaeology staff and contains photographs, hand-drawn maps and composites. Such records are vital for understanding human history, settlement and use of land. They even have intrinsic value in that archaeological sites are not recorded the same way today as they have been in the past; records like these document not just the history of the area they cover but the history of archaeology as a practice. The museum will be using this grant opportunity to partner with a university museum studies class. Students will be trained in document handling, scanning procedures and digital preservation. This project will give the students unique, hands-on, valuable experience in real-world museum work. The goal of the project is to make the maps available to researchers via the University of Utah Marriott Library.
The Cache Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum was awarded $1,250 to digitize Cache Valley pioneer histories and photographs. This is the final step of a multi-phased project the museum has been undertaking for years. This portion of the collection includes histories, portraits and even crayon drawings, all of which will be digitized and hosted by Utah State University and available in the Mountain West Digital Library.