Articles

Zion in the Desert

The Chinatown That Became a Parking Lot

From the 1870s until 1952, Salt Lake City's Plum Alley was a vibrant Chinese neighborhood — restaurants, laundries, groceries, gambling halls, and temples crammed into a narrow block downtown. The men who built the railroads lived there. Families raised children there. Then urban renewal came, and Plum Alley was erased. Today, a parking structure sits where a community once thrived. Most Salt Lakers don't know it ever existed.

Victim of the Beast 666

In Salt Lake City Cemetery, a modest red granite headstone has drawn curiosity-seekers for decades. It marks the grave of Lilly E. Gray, who died in 1958 at age 77. Below her name and dates is a single, enigmatic line: "Victim of the Beast 666." Ghost hunters love it. Conspiracy theorists have spun elaborate tales. The real story involves a paranoid husband, a grudge against the government, and a reminder that the most compelling mysteries sometimes have the most ordinary explanations.

The Day Japanese Bombs Floated Over Utah

During World War II, Japan launched 9,300 balloon bombs across the Pacific. At least one landed in Utah's Box Elder County, where a sheriff grabbed it by hand and held on for 45 minutes. The story was classified for decades.