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A banner with an image of the Provo Historic Courthouse and the text Historic Provo.

ORAL HISTORIES

The oral histories available here are the result of two separate oral history projects.

During the 1980s a dozen interviews of longtime Provo Residents were conducted by Library staff. These interviews were recorded on reel-to-reel tapes, transcribed, and then deposited in the Provo City Library's Special Collections.

Then in the late 1990s Provo City initiated the Provo City Sesquicentennial Oral History Project. This project consisted of interviews with certain older residents of Provo conducted by the staff of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University under the direction of Jessie Embry.

These interviews were captured on many cassette tapes totaling around 100 hours. The Charles Redd Center staff transcribed the tapes and presented the tapes and their transcriptions to the city. They were then put in Special Collections at the Provo City Library, where they remain available today.

A few years later both oral history projects were converted to a digital format for distribution on the Library’s website. Both the audio and transcription for each interview may be accessed by clicking on the names of the interviewees listed below.

Mark Anderson (1919-2006)

Anna Jean Backus

Louis Walter Bandley

Carolyn Bargeron

Grace Hall Bennett

Max W. Berg

Julie Blair

Mable Bott

Lee "Pony" Brooks

Marie Bunnell

Phillip and Louise Camphuisen

Edward F. Carter

Edward F. Carter and Maurita Crossley

Maurita Crossley Carter

Ella Casper

Eleanor Prows Childs

Earl Clark

Rula Cluff

Lee Cox

Iris Creer

Pearl Darling

Camellia Denys

I. Dale Despain

Verl Grant Dixon

Geneve Roberts Dunn

Richard Dunn

Dea Eyre

Sharlena Foerester

Lola Gibson

Frances Guymon

Mack A. Halladay

Afton Harding

Fred Harding

Blanche Hawke

Don Hawke

Rachel Heninger

Florence Mildred Sumner Henrichsen

Wilma Hicken

Faye Jeppson

Garold Johnson

Max Jones

Winifred Jones

Carlyle Lambert

Carol Lambert

Ken Leetham

Ben Lewis

Max and Colleen Littlefield

Celia Luce

Lois Manton

Karl Miller

Eugene Leon and Mary Ardith Olsen Nielson

Art and Erma Olsen

Delvar and Elizabeth Pope

William Ratcliff

Samuel Pyne Snow

Harry and Karma Startup

Jay and Donna Stevens

Anna Smoot Taylor

Paul H. Taylor

Mary Thomas

Doyle and Helen Thurston

Margaret Williams Torkelson

Ethel Tregeagle

Ruth Van Wagenen

Thelma E. Weight

Bergeta Williams

Thelma Williams

James and Ralph Winterton

Michelle Davies Wright

Clarissa Zobel