Utah
Uncovering the little-known history of southwest Utah’s only Chinatown
At first, Chris Merritt couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was the opening day of an archeological survey he organized near the ghost town of Silver Reef northeast of St. George. His goal was to find physical evidence of the Chinatown he believed was once there, and he didn’t have to look far.
“The ground was shimmering with material culture, what we call artifacts, from China,” the Utah Historic Preservation Office archaeologist said. “So I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in the right spot. We’re in the right location.’”
Over the next two days, Merritt’s survey team — which included local volunteers and representatives from the Bureau of Land Management and Chinese Railroad Workers Descendents Association — found more than 500 examples of Chinese artifacts. Piece by piece, these discoveries are helping to paint a picture of life in southern Utah’s only Chinatown.
Researchers already had some idea that Silver Reef — a silver mining boom town in the 1870s and 1880s — was home to a group of Chinese residents, he said, but this was the first study into what their lives may have looked like.
“They don’t show up in history books. They don’t show up in diaries. These artifacts are truly their testimony to their lives.”
Courtesy of Utah State Historic Preservation Office
He hypothesized that the town’s Chinese residents lived together in their own neighborhood. He honed in on the potential site by overlaying modern-day aerial images with historical town maps. The density of artifacts at the survey site not only proved his theory and pinpointed Chinatown’s location, but also blew past his expectations.
The Silver Reef Chinatown site is hardly remote, straddling BLM land just northeast of St. George near I-15 and popular hiking trails. So he expected that most of the pottery and other items would have been carried off at some point in the 140 years since the town’s heyday.
Instead, the team found the desert floor littered with fragments of fine porcelain cups and bowls, many hand-painted with delicate blue flowers and bamboo shoots. They also spotted pieces of giant rice vessels large enough to fit a person — something he hadn’t seen at other Chinatown sites near Utah’s Transcontinental Railroad — along with containers of imported soy sauce, pickled eggs and dried ginger.
That shows the town had shops catering to Chinese customers who wanted the comforts of home.
“You can almost start smelling the food in the back of these businesses and homes, smelling much like Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province.”
Those imported eggs and sauces would have had quite a journey, crossing the Pacific Ocean by boat before arriving in Silver Reef on a wagon because the town had no railroad line. It adds up to a community with an incredible global trade system that appears much more complex than many of the other boom-and-bust Chinatowns that popped up across the West at that time.
“When there’s people who want things, things will get there,” Merritt said. “The freight wagons were the Amazon delivery driver of the day.”
Courtesy of the Utah State Historic Preservation Office
The U.S. Census and other archives indicate that at least 250 Chinese immigrants lived there during the town’s peak, but Merritt said that’s likely an undercount. That’s partly because the residents formed a town within a town, pushed there by the racism they faced and by a desire for their own community.
The typical Chinatown resident, he said, would have been a young adult man with little money or education. Most would have worked service jobs, such as laundry or cooking, because the local mining union barred them based on their race. But some belonged to a higher socioeconomic class, too — Silver Reef’s Chinatown even had an herbal doctor.
LoAnne Barnes, a board member at the local Silver Reef Museum, said these discoveries bring the region’s diverse history to life — something all Utahns can benefit from.
“The more we can appreciate the history of the ethnic groups that make up this country, the stronger country we would be.”
The museum already features a display highlighting the town’s Chinese history, and she hopes some of the items will add to that.
Even with all of these recent findings, Merritt said, the survey is only scratching the surface of Silver Reef’s full history. He plans to continue exploring and cataloging the items found on the surface before potentially excavating and preparing items for public display.
Someday, he hopes to help put up interpretive signs near the site so visitors can learn more about the town’s Chinese residents while walking in their footsteps.
“That’s why these types of places are so significant. … They can transmit you back into that period, and you can almost hear that town booming and the mining sounds and the stamp mills and 15 different languages being spoken. And you start feeling a lot more connected to that place.”
BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — A massive community effort is underway as volunteers and Beaver County crews distribute thousands of sandbags to protect homes from the potential path of floodwaters.
After the Cottonwood Fires, residents have been waiting for weeks for relief to come in the form of rain, though officials now warn it may come all at once with an increased risk of flooding and debris flow.
Emergency Service Director Les Whitney believes that the fire has left plenty of debris to bring trouble for residents.
“We got a lot of water. We’re bringing debris with it, so tree branches, tree limbs, logs, lots of different size firewood, and that’s all in the creeks. We’re worried about that plugging up our bridges and stuff, so we have heavy equipment and excavators located in strategic places so that we can keep those bridges open,” said Whitney.
An estimated 140 homes and condominiums were spared from the flames, but remain in the paths of floodwaters.
Residents can also pick up sandbags at the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office or at the Beaver County Rodeo Fairgrounds.
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — An Eagle Mountain man currently on pretrial release in 4th District Court who is accused of abusing his dog has been arrested again for allegedly punching the same animal.
Keith Reaves Davis, 43, was booked into the Utah County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of aggravated cruelty to an animal.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies were called Wednesday afternoon to a grocery store on a report that a man was beating his dog after it had gotten off its leash and was stopped by a bystander, according to a police booking affidavit.
“I reviewed security camera footage from the grocery store, and an individual matching the description of the suspect was seen holding the dog in the air by one paw and repeatedly striking the dog on the right hind leg area. I observed the male strike the dog several times before dropping the dog from approximately 1-2 feet. The strikes appeared to be as hard as the male could hit,” the arresting deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The dog did not cry out or whimper as if the dog was accustomed to the abuse.”
When questioned, Davis “admitted to striking the dog because it was not behaving,” the affidavit states.
An animal control officer who responded to the scene to take custody of the dog noted it was the same dog he had taken from Davis exactly three months earlier during another animal abuse investigation.
In that case, Davis was charged in 4th District Court with aggravated cruelty to an animal, a class A misdemeanor; and public intoxication, a class C misdemeanor, after deputies received a tip from a neighbor that a dog was being abused at Davis’ home, according to charging documents. When questioned, Davis “acknowledged hitting his dog as punishment,” the charges state.
Deputies also reviewed videos that the neighbor had filmed. The neighbor told investigators “there was blood from the dog on the ground of the garage and (the neighbor) can hear the dog screaming as if it’s being hurt. Deputies got the videos from the (neighbor) and you can hear very loudly the dog screaming and crying with a lot of loud banging noises. In one of the videos, you can hear the dog sounding like it is being choked by a collar and is grasping for air,” a police booking affidavit states.
Davis’ next court hearing in the April case is scheduled for July 28.
In their latest booking report, sheriff’s deputies note that they “believe further harm will be inflicted on this dog if it is released back to the male a second time,” and have recommended the dog not be returned to Davis.
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.
Two years after October 7th attacks, Gaza war reshapes global politics
Two years after Hamas attacked Israel, Gaza lies in ruins and global alliances have shifted. Correction: A previous version of this video incorrectly identified the conflict. The conflict is between Israel and Hamas.
A man was arrested in Utah after allegedly stabbing a Muslim employee at a mall multiple times and telling investigators he targeted the victim because of his religion, according to court records.
Peter Michael Larsen, 48, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder and prohibited dangerous weapon conduct following the attack on July 13 at the Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City, Utah, court and online jail records show. West Valley City is a suburb of Salt Lake City.
The West Valley City Police Department said the incident occurred shortly before 3 p.m. local time, when Larsen approached a man working at a kiosk at the mall.
“After a brief interaction, the suspect pulled out a knife and began stabbing him multiple times,” police said in a statement on X. “A few bystanders interfered, and were able to separate the suspect from the victim and subdue the suspect until police arrived.”
The victim, who was not identified by authorities, sustained multiple stab wounds and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, according to police and court records.
Larsen told investigators that he had “targeted the victim with intent to kill him because of his religion (Muslim),” police said in an affidavit obtained by USA TODAY. The affidavit also states Larsen said he believes he is “a catalyst” and “intends to kill Muslims.”
The incident remains under investigation, and police said they were looking into any possible relationship between the suspect and victim. USA TODAY reached out to the West Valley City Police Department for comment.
Police: Suspect poses a ‘substantial danger to the public’
The suspect approached the Muslim man, asked for his name, asked about his religion, and indicated he wanted a bottle of water, The Salt Lake Tribune reported, citing comments from Imam Shuaib Din, who leads the Utah Islamic Center and had been in contact with the victim’s family.
As the victim turned to get the water, the attacker began stabbing him, Din told the newspaper. Police said in the affidavit that they received multiple 911 calls at around 2:30 p.m. local time reporting two men “involved in a physical altercation where one male was stabbing the other.”
When officers arrived at the scene, they observed bystanders pinning the suspect to the ground and “had already removed the knife from his hand,” according to the affidavit. Police said the victim was “bleeding profusely” and was then transported to the hospital.
The victim was identified by friends as Syed Sohail Uddin, local television station FOX 13 and The New York Times reported. A GoFundMe fundraiser organized on his behalf said he was stabbed 15 times and required multiple surgeries.
Larsen was also transported to the hospital “due to being punched in the head from bystanders trying to get the knife out of his hand,” according to the affidavit. He was later medically cleared and taken to the police station for an interview.
Police said in the affidavit that Larsen posed “a substantial danger to the public if released based on his violent actions today, ideologies and pre-planned mass casualty events.”
Advocates condemn stabbing attack at Utah mall
Muslim advocacy groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), condemned the attack.
“This horrific attack is yet another reminder that anti-Muslim rhetoric has real-world consequences. When Muslims are routinely demonized, portrayed as threats, or treated as less deserving of equal rights and dignity, some twisted individuals inevitably act on that hatred,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement on July 14.
Civil rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia in the United States over the last two-plus decades following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and more recently because of immigration policies and the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war, according to Reuters.
CAIR, which is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, reported last year that it received a record number of complaints of discrimination and Islamophobic attacks amid the war.
The organization received more than 8,650 complaints in 2024, the highest number since CAIR began publishing its annual civil rights report in 1996, according to the report released in March 2025. Complaints rose more than 7%, breaking the previous record set in 2023.
The Utah attack follows several high-profile incidents targeting Muslims in recent years, including the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois in 2023 and a deadly shooting at a San Diego mosque earlier this year.
Contributing: N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; Reuters
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