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‘There’s just nothing like it’ — The 1896 letter declaring Utah a state has come to the Beehive State

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‘There’s just nothing like it’ — The 1896 letter declaring Utah a state has come to the Beehive State


It’s unclear how a 1896 document signed by President Grover Cleveland approving Utah as a state ended up at a Boston-based document auction this spring, but it’s now finding its home in the Beehive State.

Anthony Christensen, the founder of Anthony’s Fine Art & Antiquities, announced the gallery’s purchase of the document in its neoclassical gallery on Monday afternoon.

The building itself is historical — it formerly was the Immanuel Baptist Church built in 1911 — and throughout the gallery hangs the work of artists like Walter Rane, Arnold Friberg and Minerva Teichert. The sun peers in through the stained glass ceiling and around every corner is a treasure like Louis Comfort Tiffany’s The Good Shepherd stained-glass window or H.L.A. Culmer’s landscape of the Grand Canyon.

It took decades of trying for Utah to become a state, but there was something else that Christensen emphasized when he first announced the sale.

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Christensen quoted from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail Adams about how what has become known as Independence Day in the United States would be remembered.

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival,” Adams wrote. “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Paraphrasing this quote, Christensen recalled how the Latter-day Saint pioneers celebrated July 4 and lit bonfires in what is now known as Big Cottonwood Canyon even as they faced military opposition. “They wanted to be part of America, that was their heritage,” Christensen said.

With that as a backdrop, Micah Christensen, art consultant and European art and furniture expert, said Anthony’s Fine Arts & Antiquities has been in the business for 40 years and has purchased many historically significant objects throughout the decades.

“But this one really strikes at what we feel like is part of our stewardship,” Christensen told media in a press conference. “Which is to make sure that things that are meaningful to the state find their way back here and are celebrated and understood in context.”

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The document — a handwritten letter penned in iron gall ink — sold for $27,188 at auction. Christensen said there were several documents from the federal government that were sold at auction. “But what’s uncommon is there would be one that was so specific to the state of Utah.”

“I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to my Proclamation admitting the State of Utah into the Union of States; dated this day, and signed by me; and for doing so this shall be his warrant,” the document reads in full.

Christensen said the gallery bought it “because we felt like it was important to bring that document and ensure that it is here in the state and it’s our goal to make sure that it goes to a state institution.”

It symbolizes the end of Utah’s petitioning to become part of the United States. It was signed on Jan. 4 of that year. It was signed concurrently with a proclamation (Proclamation 382) that created the state. The territory applied six times before finally entering the Union in 1896.

The gallery displayed it on the wall surrounded by other historical objects related to Utah’s journey to statehood, including a 45-star flag.

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Ronald Fox, the co-chair of the Utah Commission on the 250th anniversary of the United States and president of The Fox Group, partnered with the gallery in its pursuit of the document.

Cleveland signed the document in private. “He had a delegation from Utah there,” Fox said, but they did not witness the signing of the document.

Its journey from that signing to where it currently is in downtown Salt Lake City is unclear.

Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, a clerk or a secretary of state released a batch of documents into the public and they were no longer property of the federal government, Fox said. Private collectors owned this document prior to it coming to auction, but whose hands and how many hands it passed through is unknown.

“It is our hope that it goes into the new state museum,” Fox said, referencing the history museum slated to open in 2026 at the Utah Capitol. It’s Christensen’s hope that the gallery will find a client who would buy the document and donate it to the state so it can end up in the museum.

Fox also said that it’s likely the first time this document has ever actually been in the state of Utah. “There’s just nothing like it.”

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When the document was signed and Utah became a state, Fox said there was a jubilant celebration.

“The telegraph office was buzzing with information, and the telegraph operator came out into the middle of the street with a double barrel shotgun and fired it off to get everybody’s attention,” Fox said.

The 5 p.m. edition of the Deseret Evening News reported the news of Utah becoming a state on Jan. 4, 1896, also noting the shotgun announcement, bells ringing and blowing of whistles.

Utah’s struggle to become a state was unlike any other state in the country.

Though Cleveland signed the letter on Jan. 4 1896, it wouldn’t be until July 4 of that year that the official statehood celebrations commenced and the U.S. added the 45th star to the American flag.

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22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide

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22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide


LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Officials have identified a 22-year-old man as the suspect in a Las Vegas homicide case that killed two people in a Southern Highlands neighborhood.

Detectives say 22-year-old Ziaire Ham was the suspect in the case. According to officials, Ham was located on Tuesday, March 3, by the Ogden City Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol.

Ham was taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail. Las Vegas authorities said he will be charged with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and will be extradited back to the valley.

MORE ON FOX5: LVMPD corrections officer arrested on multiple felony charges

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The shooting occurred Monday night at the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street, near Starr Ave and Dean Martin Drive.

According to police, officers were conducting a vehicle stop in the area when they heard gunfire. After searching nearby neighborhoods they found a car with bullet impacts with a woman and a toddler inside suffering from gunshot wounds.

The pair were transported to hospital where they later died. The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner.



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Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children

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Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children


A simple moment watching a child laugh changed everything for Ivan Gonzalez.

Eight years ago, Gonzalez was working at the Ronald McDonald House when he had an idea to throw a birthday carnival for the kids staying there.

“Let’s do a carnival, birthday carnival for the kids,” he said.

MORE | Pay It Forward

What happened during that event stuck with him.

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“There I was watching this kid play whack-a-mole, just having a blast, laughing,” Gonzalez said. “And then I see his mom kind of with happy tears because he’s enjoying himself.”

That moment led to something bigger.

Gonzalez realized the experience shouldn’t stop with just one event or just one group of kids.

“I said, wait, we can do this not just for kids in the hospital,” he said with excitement.

So he started a nonprofit called Best Seat in the House, which creates events and experiences for children who often face difficult circumstances.

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“We provide events and experiences for disadvantaged kids,” Gonzalez said.

The organization serves children battling cancer and other medical conditions, refugee children, kids living in poverty, those in foster care and children with special needs.

“These kids grow up too fast,” Gonzalez said.

For Gonzalez, the mission is deeply personal.

“I grew up very poor,” he said.

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He remembers the people who stepped in for his family when they needed it most.

“The local church, we weren’t even a part of it,” he described. “My parents couldn’t afford Christmas gifts and I still remember the gifts they gave me. They didn’t even know me.”

Today, he hopes to create that same feeling for other children through his nonprofit.

“Kids live in poverty and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, let alone going to a play or to a game,” Gonzalez said.

But for Gonzalez, the reward isn’t the events themselves, it’s the joy they create.

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“You can give me a billion dollars, all the money in the world,” he says as tears roll down his face. “I won’t trade these opportunitieskids just enjoying life.”

Because of his work giving back, KUTV and Mountain America Credit Union surprised Gonzalez with a Pay it Forward gift to help him continue creating those moments for kids across Utah.

For more information on supporting Best Seat in the House, click here.

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‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing

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‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing


SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.

But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.

“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”

But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.

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“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.

“Don’t release him ever. Please.”

On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.

Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.

According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.

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During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.

On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.

Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.

On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.

“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.

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McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.

“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.

Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”

After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”

His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”

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Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.

“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”

Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.

The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.

The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.

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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.



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