Overview | Prehistory | American Indians | Explorers and Trappers | Mormon Settlement
Territorial Days | Crossroads of the West | Mines and Minorities | Transition| Statehood
Adjustment | War and Depression | Utah Today | Bibliography | Glossary
In the decades following World War II, Utah has continued to grow. Cultural institutions like the Utah Symphony, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Utah Opera Company, Ballet West, and Utah Festival Opera (Logan), Utah Shakespearean Festival (Cedar City) have a solid reputation both locally and nationally. Utah's research centers continue to lead in a variety of scientific and medical innovations.
Utah is a leader in information technology. It is home to numerous high tech companies including Iomega and Novell. Even after WordPerfect moved to Canada and Novell laid off several hundred workers, programmers, engineers and executives reinvested their severance money in new companies that have hastened the growth of Utah's high tech industry.
The announcement in 1996 that Salt Lake City would host the 2002 Winter Olympics spurred the construction of new sports venues and facilities. In 1998 Scarborough Research Corp. stated that Salt Lake City had more personal computers per household than any other city in the United States.
Tourism has become a major economic factor year round with the development of Utah's ski industry, national parks, and recreation areas such as Lake Powell and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument created in 1996. Southwestern Utah is booming, due to its warm climate which is attractive to older people.
Another growing multimillion dollar industry in Utah is that film and television production. Popular television shows produced in Utah include "Touched by an Angel." Motion pictures filmed in Utah include: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Footloose (1984), Thelma and Louis (1991), Forrest Gump (1994), Independence Day (1996) and The Wild Wild West (1999).
A major issue in Utah is that of transportation. An evergrowing population along the Wasatch front has spurred the reconstruction of freeway system (I-15 mainly), and construction of light rail (Provo-Salt Lake City) and TRAX .
Nevertheless, as a modern state, Utah faces the same kinds of problems that face other states: adequate funding for all levels of education and other public needs, environmental protection, increased opportunities for women and minorities, preservation of the historic and cultural heritage, continuing economic development of rural areas, conservation of natural resources and areas of natural beauty, and urban renewal. How these and future challenges are met will fill tomorrow's history books.
