West Side Stories: Utah History through Salt Lake City's Oldest International Neighborhood
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

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This course is one of a three-part series (each a standalone course) to be held in fall, winter, and spring terms. Taking a chronological approach, the course will follow the 2020-2021 produced serial history blog entitled "Salt Lake City West Side Stories." Through presentations, guest lecturers, readings, and site visits, class members will delve into Utah history by way of Salt Lake City's oldest international, transportation, and industrial district. The city's original "west side" is known today as the Pioneer Park neighborhood. The boundaries are: North Temple Street, West Temple Street, 600 South, and to the west, the UTA and Union Pacific tracks and Interstate 15. Inhabited first by Utah's ancient and Native peoples, the area served as a base camp or distribution hub for nearly every immigrant group that settled in Utah or the Intermountain West, until the 1970s. In 1847, Mormon settlers laid claim to the region by first camping on Salt Lake City's original west side. Thereafter, other immigrants joined, including Jews from Germany and Russia, Chinese, Africans, Italians, Greeks, Eastern Europeans, Japanese, Syrians, and other refugees from the crumbling Ottoman Empire, Mexicans, and Latinx peoples. All made, or were pressured to make, the original west side their home. The area became a bastion of other religionists, mutual aid societies, and counterculture groups and a gathering place for LGBTQ+ communities. It has also served as a place for beleaguered travelers and the homeless, ever since the first train entered the city. This course will tell the story, with your help, of one of Salt Lake Valley's most unique neighborhoods, a microcosm of Utah's not-so-often-told history, from its beginnings to the present.