Issac Goeckeritz

In the very core of Salt Lake City, two special downtown blocks serve as a mirror. Just a handful of acres of land hold more than 150 years of the Utah story. On planners' maps, they're known as Salt Lake City Blocks 75 and 76. But to generations who have worked, lived, and played along their streets, Blocks 75 and 76 are a world unto themselves.

Western views and the legal system tend to view nature as property, and as a resource from which wealth is extracted, a commodity whose only value is to provide for human needs. But for millennia indigenous communities have viewed themselves as part of nature.

Just weeks after the joining of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory, the transfer point between the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads was moved to Ogden, Utah. Overnight, the small farming community became the two companies’ official Junction City, and no traveling passenger would cross the country by rail without stopping in Ogden. Produced by documentary filmmaker Issac Goeckeritz and narrated by Phil Riesen, Ogden: Junction City of the West tells the story of the remarkable influence the railroad and its millions of traveling passengers would have on the culture and commerce of the American West. Ogden: Junction City of the West aired on PBS Station KUED7 from 2007-2010. The film was produced in cooperation with the Union Station Foundation and is currently shown at the Union Station Museum and sold to support the ongoing operations of the museum.

In the last century Americans have built over four hundred hillside letters. These enormous roadside monuments identify high schools, universities and towns, but one has a story far more dramatic than any other. In 1922 a small Utah town was rocked with the news that the local school principal, had shot and killed one of his students. The student was a member of a gang of boys who had been responsible for threatening and driving out eight prior principals. Shocked and deeply divided by the event, the community of Uintah broke apart. Uintah United tells the remarkable story of the principal's successor, Golden Kilburn, who masterfully transformed the lives and behavior of these troublesome boys and healed a community. The lasting emblem of their inspirational tale remains as a giant letter U on the Uintah Hillside, built to stand for "Uintah" and "United."

Enjoy a historical road trip to movie theaters large and small across the state. The film shares the history of the “golden age” of Hollywood when studios and entrepreneurs raced to construct extravagant theaters in which to showcase their craft, and outdo each other along the way.