Discovery Road – Winner of Best In State 2022 – Best Documentary

Since its debut in 2012, Discovery Road has produced over 60 episodes, taking viewers on immersive journeys down U.S. Highway 89 through six historic counties in central and southern Utah.

 

Each 30-minute episode blends history, mystery, heritage, and natural beauty into family-friendly storytelling that educates as much as it entertains.

 

Broadcast locally on KUED-TV and across the country through the National Educational Television Association, or NETA, the series has become a public media touchstone for anyone seeking a deeper connection to the region’s past. It is also used in classrooms across the state as part of Utah’s history curriculum.

Mormon Pioneers traveling to the west Covered Wagons Courtesy of Shaun Messick

The Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area is the only National Heritage Area designated and named for a specific people, the Mormon Pioneers – as they forged to the west. Their remarkable story of dedication, fortitude, and extraordinary efforts offers one of the best features of the Mormon colonization experience in the United States. The Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area has been identified by Congress as a factor in the expansion of the United States and contributing to the United States.

Districts

travel planner for the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area

Cowboys, Outlaws, and the Movies 

The unique landscape features a geological wonderland that has been the backdrop for feature films including; “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid,” and “Jeremiah Johnson.” While traveling through the picturesque scenery, you might recognize a scene or two. Included in the heritage area is the birthplace of Utah outlaws, Butch Cassidy and Matt Warner. Matt was a lifelong friend and a gang member alongside of Butch.  Many movies were filmed in the scenic Under the Rim District of the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area.

Mormon Colonization 

In the later part of the 1800s the Mormon pioneers began their great relocation to the west. They trekked 1,400 miles from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake. This mass-Exodus brought about colonization in Utah, Nevada, the southwest corner of Wyoming, the southeast corner of Idaho, southeast Oregon, and a large portion of southern and eastern California.

log cabin with Mormon Pioneer Family Echo City Utah
Family Portrait of Mormon Pioneers in Echo City, Utah

Monroe Jewelry Maker has International Flare – Press Release 10/22/2002

10/22/2002 8:30
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

This is part of an occasional series by the Sanpete Country Travel and Heritage Council on the people and places along U.S. Highway 89.

Monroe Jewelry Maker has International Flare

From the basement of her home in the tiny town of Monroe, Utah, Sallee Kesler offers her customers the world.

Kesler is a self-taught maker of fine jewelry. And the materials she uses to design her custom-made, one-of-a-kind pieces — coral, jade, gold, and silver, to name a few — come from places like Bali, Indonesia, Thailand, Africa and Hong Kong.

“I also use a lot of materials that are made by other people, like hand-carved gemstones. I even found one man in Tahoe who does fossil carvings in Ivory and I incorporate his work into my pieces,” she says.

“I have made pendants from pieces of pottery, from materials left over from the Ming Dynasty, from African beads that are 200 to 300 years old, and I even have some beads from Persia that are 400 years old that I am mixing into some pieces. I always look for the unusual. I check out all of the antique stores that I see and I hit the estate sales.”

But finding those unusual items — and enough of them — to use in her designs requires a lot of patience. “Once I found a few Russian bears made of beautiful stones, but I didn’t have enough to do anything with them. It took me three years before I finally accumulated eight of them, enough to do a necklace and some earrings. Another time, I wanted to do something from some beads from Bali that had inlaid carvings, and it took me four years to accumulate enough to do a necklace. I ended up bartering that necklace away for marble tile for floors in my house, but now I have really beautiful marble tile,” she says with a laugh. “I do a lot of bartering in this business.”

Kesler says that she has always been interested in jewelry design. “I’ve been making jewelry since junior high school.” But she started her career as an artist designing quilt patterns and making quilts and dolls. She switched back to jewelry when quilt-making became a big import-business. “Nowadays, you can go into a discount store and buy a quilt made in China for $50, and I can’t even get the material for that,” she says. “So I gave decided to make jewelry again and started experimenting.”

Kesler gets some assistance from her husband, Vaughn. “He is better than I am at wrapping wires and working with clasps because his hands are stronger than mine. He was an electrician in the military, so he knows how to do a lot of things to help me, like tie knots so things don’t fall off,” she says with a laugh.

Currently, Kesler shows her jewelry at her home by appointment only, and attends a few special jewelry shows a year throughout the Southwestern United States. “Most people who come to me have heard of what I do and have something special in mind. They may have a necklace from their granny they want modernized, or are looking for a special piece.”

“I love having customers come by to see what I do, and I love designing for people and I love making jewelry.” Kesler’s future plans include developing a web page to help her market her jewelry to a wider audience. “I would like to sell more of my jewelry and be free to continue living in rural Utah, enjoying the beauty of this wonderful place.”

For more information, contact:

Sallee Kesler
285 S 100 West
Monroe, UT 84754
(435) 527-1880 (phone)
jade28585@msn.com (email)

OR:
Contact: Monte Bona
Sanpete County Travel and Heritage Council
(435) 462-2502

On this website we use first or third-party tools that store small files (<i>cookie</i>) on your device. Cookies are normally used to allow the site to run properly (<i>technical cookies</i>), to generate navigation usage reports (<i>statistics cookies</i>) and to suitable advertise our services/products (<i>profiling cookies</i>). We can directly use technical cookies, but <u>you have the right to choose whether or not to enable statistical and profiling cookies</u>. <b>Enabling these cookies, you help us to offer you a better experience</b>.