Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

The past is never truly “in the past.” It’s all around us, it informs us. It speaks to our shared and to our separate identities. “Speak Your Piece” is a podcast where contributors share their insights and discoveries about Utah's 12,000 year (plus) human story. Hosted by Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian (Utah Dept. of Culture & Community Engagement), and co produced by Chelsey Zamir, a new episode is released every other week, sometimes more, sometimes less. SYP explores the key arguments with new and worthwhile older publications, articles or websites; or delves into a notable museum, archival collection, archaeological report; or allows a respected writer, curator or historian to speak freely, sometimes about difficult history. SYP seeks to tell a history of Utah in a way you might not heard it before., told by the people who know it best: historians, writers, curators, archaeologists, rare book dealers, archivists, librarians and more. Speak Your Piece is recorded and engineered at the Utah State Library in Salt Lake City. Jason Powers is the sound and post-production engineer. The SYP logo is a photograph entitled "Canyonlands," taken by Utah outdoor photographer Al W. Morton, circa 1955, within the Canyonlands National Park (NPS). The lone man in the image is Kent Frost, looking over a series of needle rock formations located in San Juan County, Utah. The image and rights are owned by the Utah State Historical Society.

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Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

Historical Struggles for Water: Westwater (Navajo) and the Uinta Reservation (Ute) - Join us @ the Annual History Conference: "Water at the Confluence Past and Present" (S5 E3)

October 10, 2022 • Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian, Utah Dept. of Culture & Community Engagement • Season 5 • Episode 3

Date: September 19, 2022 (Season 5, Episode 3 - 35 minutes long). Click Here for the Utah Dept. of Culture & Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here.

Here are two audio samples from the October 26, 2022 state history conference "WATER AT THE CONFLUENCE OF PAST & FUTURE'' (Provo Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, 101 West 100 North, Provo, Utah). To join Utah's annual history fest click here. In this episode director of Utah's Indian Affairs Dustin Jansen and ethnohistorian Dr. Sondra Jones, offers sneak peeks into their conference session “Native Utahns: The Struggle to Get and Use Water." This episode was co-produced by James Toledo (Program Manager, Utah Division of Indian Affairs).

Jansen relates the recent history of Westwater, San Juan County, Utah, a rural Navajo community on the edge of Blanding, Utah, which has struggled for fifty years to get water and electricity. Jansen speaks to the combined efforts to overcome long standing obstacles, led by Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, along with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Utah State Legislature.

Jones speaks of the very long road (1861 to the present) for the Ute people gaining access, then losing by forced sales (eminent domain) and finally gaining ownership to water flowing through the Uinta & Ouray Reservation. This includes the backstory to the Strawberry Valley Reservoir–Utah's first public works project drawing water from the Colorado River drainage system–and the beginning of the federally funded Central Utah Project.

The Utah Division of State History and Utah Museums Association are combining their conferences this year (back to back -- museum conference October 24-26 and the Utah history conference October 26).

Bio: Dustin Jansen has been since 2019 the director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. Originally from Coyote Canyon, New Mexico, he was born and raised on the Navajo Reservation. Attending school at Utah Valley University (UVU, Orem, Utah), BYU (Provo), and at the University of Utah, Dustin then graduated with a Juris Doctorate from the S.J. Quinney College of Law. From 2006 to 2015 he served as a tribal judge at the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation. In 2015 he was appointed program coordinator for the American Indian Studies program at UVU. Photo courtesy of the S.J. Quinney School of Law, University of Utah.

Bio: Dr. Sondra G. Jones has a PhD in history from the University of Utah in American and Native American History. Sondra is an adjunct professor in the History Department at Brigham Young University, and is the author of Being and Becoming Ute: The Story of an American Indian (2019). She is also the author of numerous other books and articles on the history of the Ute Nation.

Do you have a question or comment, or a proposed guest for “Speak Your Piece?” Write us at “ask a historian” – askahistorian@utah.gov