Granite Mountain (Salt Lake County, Utah)

Granite Mountain is a mass of solid rock one mile up Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Range of Utah, not too far from Salt Lake City, Utah. Despite its name, Granite Mountain is primarily composed of quartz monzonite, an igneous rock similar to granite in appearance, physical characteristics, and chemical composition. This is the same material used to construct the Salt Lake Temple and the facade of the LDS Conference Center.

Granite Mountain Records Vault

See also: Family History Library and Genealogical Society of Utah

The Granite Mountain Records Vault (also known simply as The Vault) is a large archive and vault owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) excavated 600 feet into the north side of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The Granite Mountain facilities feature a dry, environment-controlled facility used for long-term record storage, as well as administrative offices, shipping and receiving docks, a processing facility and restoration laboratory for microfilm.

Records stored include genealogical and family history information contained in over 2.4 million rolls of microfilm and 1 million microfiche. This equals about three billion pages of family history records. The vault's library of microfilm increases by up to 40,000 rolls per year. Since 1999, the church has been digitizing the genealogical microfilms stored in the vault. The church makes the records publicly available through its Family History Centers, as well as online at its FamilySearch website.

There is a second vault, two miles further up the canyon. However, this vault is owned and operated by Perpetual Storage Inc., and run for-profit.

See also

References

  • Baldridge, Steven W. (1992), "Granite Mountain Record Vault", in Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 563–564, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140.
  • Burton, Theodore M. (May 1973), "What is the function of the Granite Mountain Records Vault?", Q&A: Questions and Answers, New Era, p. 48
  • Hart, John L. (11 March 2006), "Digitizing hastens at microfilm vault", Church News
  • Ouimette, David S. (March–April 2005), "The Vault: A Mountain of Granite and Gold", Ancestry Magazine, 23 (2): 32–37
  • Pitcher, Erin (June 2007), "Lecture Looks at Online Future of Family History", News of the Church, Liahona, pp. N2 – N3
  • Schueler, Donald G. (December 1981), "Our family trees have roots in Utah's mountain vaults", Smithsonian, 19 (9): 86–94, OCLC 367569840
  • Shoumatoff, Alex (1985), The Mountain of Names: A History of the Human Family, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0671494406, OCLC 11783977
Period

Further reading

  • Records protection in an uncertain world, Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1975, OCLC 82833411
  • In a Granite Mountain, Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1988, OCLC 78458311
  • Granite Mountain—Where a billion people "live", The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, OCLC 367547552


40°34′23″N 111°45′48″W / 40.573143°N 111.763413°W / 40.573143; -111.763413


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