Sunstone

Two unsolved murders. One Black Mormon born into slavery. A doctor who challenged Brigham Young’s power. And a mutilated body left on Arsenal Hill with a warning pinned to its chest. In the winter of 1866, Salt Lake...

In 2006, Carol Lynn Pearson’s play “Facing East” premiered in Salt Lake City. Then it had runs off Broadway and in San Francisco. Focusing on the Mormon parents of a gay man who committed suicide, it...

Why did the U.S. Army build a fort above Salt Lake City with its guns pointed toward the Mormon capital? Lindsay Hansen Park and Bryan Buchanan trace the explosive history of Fort Douglas, from the Utah War and Brigham...

Young Washington and Odysseus walk into a fast and testimony meeting. Only one will emerge triumphant! Both are violent. Both play fast and loose with their source material. And both are myths. In this episode, Stephen...

He dedicated Jerusalem for the return of the Jews, renamed Nevada’s oldest town, nearly became president of the LDS Church, and may have helped create one of Mormonism’s most enduring succession myths. This week...

Dan McClellan has done the seemingly impossible. He has made Bible scholarship not only accessible, but cool on his TikTok channel. In this episode, he talks about how he became the internet sensation he is today...

On Friday the 13th, 1862, a thousand armed men surrounded a muddy little fort on the Weber River, where Joseph Morris and his followers waited for the Second Coming. What followed was a three-day siege, cannon fire...

Roadshows, Boy Scouts, MIA, basketball leagues, potlucks—the LDS Church was once buzzing with community activities. But most of that has disappeared. How did it happen? In this episode, Mithryn (a.k.a. Kenneth Lines)...

In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan dive into the 1860s, the decade when Mormon polygamy reached its statistical and cultural peak. Drawing on census data, diaries, oral histories, and the sharp observations of British...

What if apostles were given emeritus status at 70 years of age? This was the question apostle Hugh B. Brown proposed to the Quorum of the Twelve as President David O. McKay descended into senility. Would the Quorum go...

What do Latter-day Saints mean when they say temples are sacred? Intrepid reporter Stephen Carter braves three tours of the Lindon Temple to find out. (Hint: It’s definitely not the symbolism.)   The post E120...

Before texts, tracking numbers, and two-day shipping, a letter could take months to cross the continent, assuming it arrived at all. In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan saddle up for the tangled story of Mormons, mail...

While Eastern theaters staged plays depicting Mormons as bloodthirsty polygamists, Brigham Young was building a Drury Lane replica in the Utah desert. It would go on to host Oscar Wilde, the Barrymore family across four...

What do Brigham Young’s flamboyant son, a legendary local gin, the University of Utah, the Huntsman Center, and a web of Mormon architecture all have in common? In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan follow one gloriously...

What happens when the Book of Mormon slips into the public domain and someone entirely outside the faith decides to publish it? In this episode of the Sunstone Mormon History Podcast, Lindsay and Bryan trace the strange...