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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