"If ever there was an area that needed a strong alternative voice in the news media," wrote managing editor Tom Walsh in April 1992, "it's the Wasatch Front. That's why the Private Eye exists."
In its eighth year, Private Eye embraced its mission of highlighting the underreported and filling neglected niches even as it further refined its operation and engaged with the community. This would be its final publication cycle before switching to a weekly format, a format which has remained in place ever since. With a reported circulation of 26,000 in August 1991, there was evidently a demand for the kind of reporting that Private Eye sought to provide.
And what a wide range of stories to cover! There were national controversies over the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, the police brutality upon Rodney King, the effects of MTV and the ongoing effort to criminalize abortion. On the local front, there was the consultant-led decline of local television news typified by the dismissal of KTVX anchor Phil Riesen; the rise of soon-to-be-Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini (1944-2015); and the political activities of such LGBTQ groups as Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats (GLUD) and Queer Nation.
Quoting Wilbur Storey of the Chicago Times, Walsh stated that it was "a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell." What follows are some glimpses of this paper in the course of its duty.
Remembering Vol. 8: In the air
Writing in the June 11, 1991, issue, Gode Davis recounted a stagnant period of bad air that stewed in the Salt Lake Valley during the winter of 1976-77 caused by automobile emissions and leading to the respiratory failures of hundreds of people.
"Fifteen years later," Davis reported, "a potentially lethal situation has become much worse."
To address this disaster of environment and infrastructure, plans for a combination of light rail, extra freeway lanes and expanded UTA bus service were then on the minds of many. For others, adding lanes and creating "guided" bus routes would suffice. Still others preferred what heavy rail trains had to offer.
Coverage, capacity and cost were the perennial points of debate, but one particular measure seemed to have potential: the multi-modal Option 11.
"Option 11," wrote Davis, was "one of 12 major transportation 'options' that have been considered since the early 1980s by downtown and 'State Street corridor' businesspeople as well as local transportation and government officialdom."
Including a light rail component and projected to be ready in 1998, Option 11's fate at the polls was considered to be a bellwether for the prospects of future mass-transit planning.
Utah Transit Authority opened its first Trax line between Salt Lake City and Sandy in 1999, with other lines and transportation methods unfolding in the subsequent years. As of September 2023, UTA estimates an average of 111,607 riders systemwide.
In the ads
Contained within the Sept. 3, 1991, issue was a notice about the upcoming visit of President George H.W. Bush to Salt Lake City. He came to rub elbows with Utah's fat cats and meet in a closed-door gathering with the Golden Elephant Club, a Republican fundraising group.
"Come peacefully, join with others in showing George Bush how we feel about his administration's record regarding peace, justice and environmental issues," beckoned the ad. "Please bring a drum or protest sign."
Ultimately, between 800 and 1,000 protestors showed up, representing groups as diverse as the Rain Forest Action Group and Planned Parenthood.
In the gang
On Labor Day of 1991, 40 neo-Nazis gathered at the State Capitol in a march to the Federal Building. The white supremacists were met, however, by a crowd of counter-protestors that vastly outnumbered them. No violence occurred, and no arrests were made, but the shouting match extended to well over an hour.
"Hey, hey, go home, racism has got to go!" chanted protestors.
Ten days before this much-publicized confrontation, as Ben Fulton reported in the Sept. 17 issue of Private Eye, members of Utah's United White Working Class (UWWC) had been trying to add to their paltry numbers by gathering outside the "Rock Against Racism" benefit at the Pompadour and "actively recruiting its most tender prey: young people."
A week after that effort and just prior to their Labor Day march, UWWC numbers suddenly doubled in size by an infusion of visiting brownshirts from Las Vegas.
Lest anyone console themselves with the notion that "it can't happen here," Fulton reminded readers that there were then 45 regular members of the UWWC, along with another 60 at the periphery. Not all of them were evidently willing to reveal themselves to public view.
According to then-Sgt. Ken Hansen of the Salt Lake Area Gang Project, local white supremacists had been responsible for half a dozen recent assaults on African Americans and gays as well as vandalism to the Jewish Community Center.
"Skinheads are really out-of-the-closet racists," Hansen observed at the time. "There are other racists in this valley who prefer to keep their swastikas hidden."
Ron Yengich was among the group protesting the Nazi march. He observed that despite calls to underplay the presence of white supremacist groups, his mind couldn't help returning to recent gay bashings in Idaho and Washington and the 45 million humans murdered during the Holocaust.
"I remembered the fact," he noted, "that in Hitler's Germany, not only were Jews exterminated but along with the Reichstag, books were burned, jazz music was considered black music and was censored, and even Mickey Mouse or Michael Maus (as Germanized) was banned as a 'dangerous foreigner.'"
This begs the question of whether the much-feared epithet of "woke" has become today's acceptable replacement for "dangerous foreigner." It also invites us to consider how best to respond to such ancient evils.
"The racism and hatred so prevalent today is far less obvious and possibly even more stubborn than what the UWWC and the American Front represent," concluded Fulton. "Anyone can point to a swastika and yell. But if, as [some white supremacists claim], peace comes from chaos and war, we must provide an appropriate response. Namely, that peace is born out of empathy and knowledge."
In the rhythm
J.P. Gabellini–a nom de plume of John Paul Brophy–was kept busy this year writing for Private Eye's music beat, with many events and festivals taking place. Perhaps most notable among them was the annual Utah Jazz and Blues Festival at Snowbird. It featured the R&B of the Tempo Timers, blues from Catfish Keith, jazz by the Ray Brown Trio and gospel courtesy of Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. Headlining the event that year was "the Queen of the Blues," Koko Taylor (1928-2009), who gave "an understated, smoldering performance," wrote Gabellini in the Aug. 6, 1991 issue.
Later, in a special insert for April 30, a music supplement provided a thorough guide to navigating the tough musical climate of the Beehive State.
"The majority of our music is heard in private clubs that remain inaccessible to the masses," read the introduction. Thankfully, there were many artists who play 'and play well.'"
In the way
"Austin Walker takes a labored breath and looks out his window to the west where [his family home] sits," wrote Tom Walsh in the April 16, 1992, issue. "At first glance, it looks like a run-down farm, but it's actually our future colliding with our past."
Walker (1903-1992)—lungs deteriorating and strength failing—was forcefully butting heads with the developer Hermes and Associates over the historic Jehu Cox home, an 1849 adobe structure in which the Walker family had resided since the start of the 20th century. Hermes wanted to expand the Family Center strip mall to the south of the Cox home and develop another 160,000 square feet.
Thanks to a county commissioner vote to amend the area's master plan for commercial zoning, the old homes and barns of the Fort Union area south of 7200 South were now an impediment in Hermes' way. Much of that was through Hermes' own doing, according to local resident Susan Hale.
"So, they've come and bought different pieces of property here and let them go to blight," Hale told Private Eye at the time. "Now, they want a blight study so we can bring in redevelopment, condemn the property and take it away, using taxpayer dollars."
What's more, Hermes was then pushing for a tax contract that would have guaranteed up to 60% of its tax revenues going back to them. At their own request, Hermes' proposed site plan was kept from public eyes until after county commissioners had already changed the area's zoning for commercial development.
"Let me tell you a couple of things those suckers did," Walker said of Hermes. "They sent one of their men out to my son John's house in West Jordan and told him to take control of the land away from me, become administrator, so John could sell. It was a ruse to create a division in my family, and it didn't work."
Residents were proposing a historical park around the Cox home while Hermes favored the bulldozer. Walsh noted that a committee of local residents and representatives for Hermes were expected to meet within the coming month to find a compromise.
"Austin Walker is waiting to see how this public policy issue plays out," he concluded. "Meanwhile, he's suffering through a bout of pneumonia."
"I'll stay here 'til I die," Walker said.
The response to Walsh's story was very positive, with subsequent reader comments congratulating Private Eye for its reporting.
"I have never seen a better researched article and as well written," wrote H. Reed Black.
Marion G. Cox (1921-2017), a descendent of Jehu Cox and Austin Walker's neighbor, was also effusive: "Boy, I want to thank Tom Walsh and [photographer] Michael Shoenfeld for the great job they have accomplished."
A nonprofit group was formed to buy the Jehu Cox home and preserve it in the months following publication of this story.
While the effort to save the building ultimately failed with the home's demolition in 1994, a replica of the Cox home was built a few blocks away from the original location.
It can be found on a plot of grass at 7188 Union Park Ave., in the midst of the vast Fort Union shopping center development.
