HISTORICAL PROVO PEOPLE AND PLACES

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.