Interesting facts about the great state of UTAH
Facts about Utah!
- Loftus International, a family-run novelty company in Salt Lake City, sells between 10,000 and 20,000 rubber chickens each year.
- The official state cooking vessel of Utah is the Dutch oven. Like the ax and the rifle, these cast iron cooking pots would have been considered precious necessities by westbound pioneers coming to the state in the 19th century. Utah recognized the Dutch oven as an official state symbol in 1997.
- Utah is the only state where every county contains some part of a national forest.
- Walter Fredrick Morrison, the man credited for inventing the Frisbee, was a Utah native. The inspiration for the idea came from tossing tin cake pans back and forth on the beach with his future wife. He began manufacturing “Pluto Platters” of his own in 1948.
- Utah is the only state whose capital is three words long. At one point it was even longer: Salt Lake City was originally named “Great Salt Lake City” for its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, but they decided to drop the “Great” in 1868.
- If your vision of the Old West is formed by films and shows like Stagecoach, The Lone Ranger, and Gunsmoke, you’re likely picturing Kane County. It’s often referred to as “Little Hollywood” because it’s served as the backdrop for dozens of Westerns over the years. You can go here to check out the full list (non-Westerns like Arabian Nights and the original Planet of the Apes were also filmed there).
- It’s illegal to modify the weather in Utah—at least without a permit. The Utah Administrative Code defines weather modification or “cloud seeding” as, “All acts undertaken to artificially distribute or create nuclei in cloud masses for the purposes of altering precipitation, cloud forms, or other meteorological parameters.”
- The Uintah County Library houses a collection of handmade dolls modeled after every U.S. First Lady up to Nancy Reagan.
- Utah lays claim to one of the biggest man-made pits on earth. About a 30 minute drive from Salt Lake City, the Bingham Canyon mine has produced 18.1 million tons of copper since the Kennecott Copper Corp. began digging there a century ago. The mine reaches a quarter of a mile into the earth, making it deep enough to fit two Willis Buildings stacked on top of one another and still have room left at the top. The pit’s massive size makes it easily visible to astronauts as they pass over the state. And because Kennecott digs approximately 250,000 tons of rock from the pit every day, tourists can see the hole grow bigger with every visit (the mine is currently closed to visitors due to movement detected on its northeast wall).
Click here to return to the Just For Fun menu page
Click here to return to the Main Menu page