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SALT LAKE CITY — Vice President Mike Pence landed in Utah Wednesday evening ahead of his planned speech at Merit Medical Thursday morning.
According to the vice president’s office, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will join Pence on the trip, and no other meetings or events were on the docket for his trip.
Pence, who last visited the state in 2016, is just the latest vice president to the Beehive State in its history. In honor of his first visit to Utah as vice president, here’s a look at five of the more memorable visits from vice presidents who were in office at the time of their visit to Utah:
Schuyler Colfax, 1869
Colfax had visited the territory four times prior to his first visit as vice president. In what was perhaps the most-documented vice-presidential visit in Utah’s history, Colfax gave a speech at the Townsend House Hotel in Salt Lake City on Oct. 5, 1869. According to BYU, Colfax spoke out against polygamy and defended actions by the federal government to end the practice of plural marriage but also complimented those in the territory at the time for their industrial and cultural advancements.
Richard Nixon, 1960
Nixon, who was vice president at the time, visited BYU and spoke at the Salt Lake Tabernacle in October 1960, according to the Deseret News. His visit was during his first campaign to be president; Nixon won Utah’s vote but lost the election to John F. Kennedy.
Hubert Humphrey, 1968
Speaking of vice presidents seeking the Oval Office, Humphrey visited Utah in September 1968. While in Salt Lake City, Humphrey delivered a nationally-televised address where he stated he was willing to end the Vietnam War. Despite the fact Utah voted for the Lyndon Johnson-Hubert Humphrey ticket in 1964 (the last time a Democratic candidate won in the state), Utahns sided with Nixon in the 1968 election and Nixon went on to become the U.S.’s 37th president.
Dick Cheney, 2007
Cheney delivered the commencement address and received an honorary degree from BYU during its commencement ceremony on April 26, 2007. Cheney spoke about second chances and received a mostly-warm welcome during the event, per reports from the event.
Joe Biden, 2016
On Feb. 26, 2016, Biden visited Family History Library, where he was given genealogy records of his family. He then spoke at the Huntsman Cancer Institute as a part of the White House’s “moonshot” initiative to speed up cancer research and find a cure for it.
