Alta’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold just one old photo of Alta. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Alta has been important to the development of skiing in Utah. Alta was founded about 1865 to house miners from the Emma mine, the Flagstaff mine, and other silver mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Sensationally rich silver ore in the Emma mine enabled its owners to sell the mine at an inflated price to British investors in 1871. The subsequent exhaustion of the Emma ore body led to the recall of the American ambassador to Great Britain, who was a director of the company, and to Congressional hearings in Washington DC on the transaction.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Alta’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Alta’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewALTA CITY AND EMMA MINE, 1879: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Alta, decade by decade
Nothing in Alta is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Alta has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Anne P. Marriott House in Alta, 1.6 miles away.
Alta and the nearest listed places
Closest to Alta
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as ALTA CITY AND EMMA MINE (1879) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.