The benefited throughout eral Utah civilian from economy the and the twentieth military infusion has regularly spending century. of fed-benefited from the infusion of fed-eral civilian and military spending throughout the twentieth century. The Cold War (1945-1991) proved to be a boon for the Utah economy, including major spending at Hill Air Force Base, the Tooele Army Depot, and smaller military installa-tions like Defense Depot Ogden. Commercial companies also thrived on federal contracts. One of the largest private defense contractors in Utah arrived in 1956, when Thiokol Chemical Corporation made the decision to build a solid-fuel rocket development and production facility in the arid lands west of Brigham City.

Thiokol began in a small laboratory in Kansas City, Missouri, where in 1926 Joseph Cecil Patrick, a medical doctor turned chemist, discovered a way to create a synthetic rubber while seeking to …