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.

All Episodes

Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

The Youthful Workforce of the North Rim, Zion, Bryce & Cedar Breaks: "Singaway: Working and Playing for the Utah Parks Company, 1923 to 1972" (Season 2, Ep. 14)

March 11, 2021 • Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian, Utah Dept. of Heritage & Arts • Season 2 • Episode 14

March 1, 2021 (Season 2, Episode 14, 63 minutes) To see the Speak Your Piece shownotes incluidng the bios of this episode's guests, click here.

From 1923 to 1972 the Utah Parks Company (a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad based in Cedar City, Utah) hosted nearly every visitor that came through Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The UPC transported, guided, fed, entertained and housed tens of thousands of paying tourist each year, using primarily a workforce of young men and women, ages 16 to 26 years of age.

In this episode of Speak Your Piece, authors Ryan Paul and Janet Seegmiller, tell the story of the estimated 40,000 high school and college age students, who spent their summers working for UPC. Using hundreds of oral histories, written recollections and photographs, and other historical sources, they tell the stories of coming of age; hard work, comradery and conflict; the comical and revealing; and how tens of thousands of America's youth fell in love with Utah's and Arizona's magnificent, sublime national parks.

Singaway, Working and Playing for the Utah Parks Company, 1923 to 1972 (2019), is available only through the Zion National Park Forever Project website.

This workforce included "locals" and students from throughout Utah, and urban and rural youth from around the country, from New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Nebraska and more. All hired to serve, prepare and care for the tourist, or “the dudes (referring to both men and women)” who traveled by train and buses, to stay in Union Pacific Railroad’s lodges and Inns.

The list of seasonal jobs included mechanic assistants, gearjammers (bus drivers), bellhops, maids, wood boys, linen boys, “talents” (including dance band members, singers, piano players and more), utility workers, nurses, switchboard operators, assistant wranglers, maître d', hostesses, waitresses, bus boys, soda fountain workers, janitors, clerks, dishwashers, bakers assistants, butcher assistants and finally cooks, including pantry prep workers, fry cooks, second cooks, sous chefs and in some cases even the chef.

An exhibit regarding UPC's seasonal employees may be seen at Utah's Frontier Homestead State Park Museum.

Other Recommended Readings: (1) To understand the vital link between the national parks and America's railroads see Alfred Runte, Trains of Discovery: Western Railroads and the National Parks (4th Edition) and (2) Seegmiller and Paul mention both the wranglers and the burros who transported guests up and down the North Rim of Grand Canyon, and mentioned Marguerite Henry's 1953 book "Brighty of the Grand Canyon."