Editor s note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com s Historic section.
BLANDING, San Juan County A significant Navajo Nation trading post at the heart of Monument Valley in southeast Utah received major recognition Thursday as efforts begin to save it before it s possibly lost forever.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Oljato Trading Post one of its 11 most endangered historic sites in the United States this year, which highlights it as one of the more important historic sites in desperate need of rehabilitation to preserve it.
The listing comes as members of the Navajo Nation and also historians have started to look into ways to rehabilitate the structures tied to the trading post and turn them into a new community center and tourism destination at the center of growing popular outdoors spots like Monument Valley and Bears Ears National Monument.
Deseret News
‘It belongs to the public’: Family donates first 45-star banner to fly over the U.S. Capitol
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Serge Horton Benson, center, and Jan Benson salute the 45-star flag that has been in their family after presenting it to the state at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. It is the original 45-star flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol when Utah became the 45th state in 1896. It will be displayed on the first floor of the Utah Capitol.
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
For years Jan Benson felt conflicted about a piece of Utah and American history that his family had in their possession.
Editor s note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com s Historic section.
PROMONTORY, Box Elder County Western Box Elder County may seem like a vacant, open space to some, but it remains a treasure trove for historians and archeologists seeking all the information they can get about one of the most significant moments in U.S. history.
The bits and pieces of materials left behind by the transcontinental railroad workers in the late 1860s and the first generation of railroad communities that were established shortly after the railroad was completed, which happened 152 years ago Monday, tell more about the story of the railroad than most documentation of the time.