Park City Museum Research Library Preserves Summit County's Mining and Ski History

The Park City Museum Research Library houses an extensive archive documenting Summit County’s shift from mining camp to ski town and provides research assistance to community members, scholars and students by appointment. Its collections include historic photographs, maps, newspapers, manuscripts and local history publications that underpin research into property, genealogy, preservation and tourism history.

Located as part of the Park City Museum’s broader operations, the research library serves as a living repository for materials that would otherwise be scattered or lost. Photographic collections and cartographic holdings let researchers trace the physical footprint of mining-era workings and the later development of ski infrastructure. Historic newspapers and manuscripts provide contemporaneous accounts that are essential for understanding the county’s economic cycles, demographic shifts and cultural institutions.

For Summit County residents the library is practical as well as symbolic. Property owners researching deed history, families compiling genealogies and students preparing projects can schedule appointments for focused access to primary sources. Local planners, preservation boards and nonprofit organizations draw on maps and archival records when evaluating historic districts or preparing preservation nominations and grant requests. Those uses translate archival value into policy and economic outcomes: better-documented historic assets can support targeted preservation funding, influence development decisions and bolster heritage tourism that sustains Main Street businesses.

The research library also supports scholarship that places Summit County in broader economic and cultural trends. Mining booms and busts, regional migration and the rise of recreation-based economies are documented in newspapers and manuscripts that reveal how jobs, land use and investment shifted over generations. Those records help researchers assess long-term changes in local labor markets and land values, and they inform conversations about balancing growth with historic character.

Access is by appointment; community members can learn more or request research help at parkcityhistory.org/research-library. The library’s availability to a broad audience—residents, students, academics and policymakers—strengthens civic capacity to use history in contemporary decision making.

As Summit County continues to manage growth and tourism pressure, maintaining and using archival records will remain important. For residents, the research library is both a toolkit for practical questions about property and family history and a civic asset that helps shape how the community preserves and markets its mining and ski heritage in the years ahead.