Utah Italians - History

History

Differently from the northern European nations, Italy provided very few immigrants for the first “wave” of Mormon converts to Utah in the 1850-1880. Only a small group of about 50 Waldensians from an area near Turin came to the Salt Lake Valley in that early period. They had been converted by the missionary efforts of Joseph Toronto and Lorenzo Snow, who later became the President of the LDS Church. The name of those Waldensian families, such as Bertoche, Beus, Cardon, Chatelain, and Malan, today are of historical importance, because their descendants are very numerous, and are deeply intertwined with the development of Utah. The second wave of immigrants, from 1890 to 1920s, is the most important, because it involved thousands of people from every region of Italy, but especially from the southern regions of Calabria and Sicily, and the northern regions of Piedmont and Trentino. The new immigrants settled in the Counties of Salt Lake, Carbon and Weber, where most of the railroad and mining jobs were available. A Little Italy soon spread in the west side of Salt Lake City around the Rio Grande station, with stores selling Italian food and merchandise. The Catholic parish where Italians met was St Patrick, located in their neighborhood. In the 1950s Little Italy was cut in the middle by the construction of the freeway, and from then on it decayed rapidly. Lately, a little revival is taking place in the area, after the opening of a cluster of stores dealing with Italian food, and a restaurant in the 1990s. For a few years, an Italian Center has organized lectures, classes of language, and other cultural events in a room provided by one of the stores. The Italian Festival Ferragosto is also held every August in that historic area. A very successful farmers' market, similar to the Italian ones, helps to create a Mediterranean atmosphere.