You may have read the story earlier this week about the trove of Salt Lake Tribune photos from the 1930s through the 1960s, recently made available online.
The Utah Division of State History digitized 171,000 photos and put them online so they can be searched. It turns out the collection includes photos important to polygamists in Utah and Arizona.
There are photos of the 1944 polygamy trials in Salt Lake City. There's an even larger collection of the 1953 Arizona law enforcement raid of Short Creek.
Among the finds in that collection is a photo of then-Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Leroy S. Johnson. He's one of the few faces that are instantly recognizable. There were few captions with the negatives, and descendants or historians will have to step in to identify the people in the photos.
You can access both collections by going to http://bit.ly/TribHistory and searching for the words "polygamy" or "plural marriage."
ncarlisle@sltrib.com
Twitter: @natecarlisle
| courtesy of the Utah Historical Society Men and boys are gathered in a yard in this photo dated July 26, 1953, during the state of Arizona's raid on the Short Creek polygamous community. The photo is part of a collection recently made available from Salt Lake Tribune negatives digitized by the Utah Historical Society.
| courtesy of the Utah Historical Society Then Fundamentalist of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Leroy S. Johnson talks on July 26, 1953, photo from the state of Arizona's raid on the Short Creek polygamous community. The photo is part of a collection recently made available from Salt Lake Tribune negatives digitized by the Utah Historical Society.
