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(AP file photo)KAYSVILLE -- While researching for an upcoming exhibit, the Heritage Museum of Layton uncovered a little known piece of Utah history. During the chaotic years of the depression and World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt kept tabs on Utah through the Weekly Reflex.
The small-town paper ended up on the president's desk after a series of friendships and national politics came together.
The now long-extinct Kaysville weekly paper was partially owned by Utah Gov. Henry H. Blood. His friend and fellow newspaperman Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. came to Utah and took a tour of the paper's printing facility.
Heritage Museum director Bill Sanders says Vanderbilt believed his longtime friend Franklin Roosevelt could use the paper for a political edge.
"He thought President Roosevelt would have to have a subscription to the paper, which would give him a grassroots idea of what people were thinking and what problems people had during the Depression years," Sanders explained.
Vanderbilt gave the subscription to the president as a gift. The paper would print in Kaysville on Tuesday and be in the president's hands by Saturday.
The yearly subscription cost Vanderbilt $2.50.
E-mail: ldaniels@ksl.com
