Group asks for pioneer stories

MT. PLEASANT, Sanpete County — The Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area, in conjunction with two of its anchor partners, is asking people to share their stories and documents of pioneer heritage from the central and southern Utah area.

Since the MPNHA's inception five years ago, it has worked with communities and other partners to provide venues where the area's rich heritage can be kept and shared.

Two such venues are nearing readiness: the Mormon Pioneer Heritage Institute and the Central Utah Pioneer Heritage Center and Gardens.

As part of their final preparations, officials are seeking stories and historical documents to be shared and preserved.

Doing so furthers the mission of the MPNHA in two important ways, said Monte Bona, executive director of the MPNHA.

"Among the goals of the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area are, one, to enable communities to appreciate and tell the story of the pioneers, their settlements, and their interaction with the land; and two, to provide ways for families and others to share stories from their own heritage," Bona said.

The Heritage Institute and the Heritage Center/Gardens will do exactly that.

"Their work is vital to the Heritage Area's mission to preserve and interpret the heritage of the pioneers," Bona said.

They, partnering with the MPNHA, are asking for the public's help.

Mormon Pioneer Institute

The Mormon Pioneer Institute is the academic center of the MPNHA and will be housed on the campus of Snow College in Ephraim. With an academic focus, it is interested primarily in documented history — letters, personal written histories, transcribed oral histories, pictures, newspaper clippings, etc.

"Mainly, anything of a historical nature that is on a piece of paper," says Roger Baker, the institute's director.

The institute will serve as a repository for these documents, indexing them and preserving them while at the same time making them available for viewing and research.

As Baker traveled through the Heritage Area while the institute was under development, he met many people who had such records.