Sunstone Mormon History Podcast

Before Mountain Meadows, there was blood in Arkansas. This is the wild, tragic, and shockingly true story of the Mormon apostle murdered over a love triangle, the woman caught in the crossfire, and the ripple effect that helped ignite one of the darkest moments in American frontier history. SHOWNOTES: Eleanor McLean and the Murder of …

In this episode, legal historian John Dinger joins us to uncover the little-known world of rogue probate judges in frontier Utah. These weren’t your average courtroom clerks. Mormons wielded sweeping powers, defied federal authority, and turned probate courts into parallel governments under Brigham Young’s theocracy. What happens when local law outruns the Constitution? Tune in …

In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan dive into one of the most violent and outrageous chapters of early Mormon history: the “Runaway Officials” scandal. When federal appointees tried to enforce U.S. law in Utah Territory, they faced threats, beatings, and sabotage from a theocratic regime that ran more like a mafia than a government. From …

Once again, through no action or righteousness on their part, another great story landed in the lap of Lindsay and Bryan. That’s right, it’s mailbag time again! A friend of a listener was going through some papers of her mother’s and found an affidavit from a woman claiming to be a plural wife of Joseph …

We love our fan mail! Especially when they contain juicy historical details, which is why we’re introducing MAIL BAG EPISODES, where we sometimes share those tidbits on an episode. Lindsay and Bryan usually find enough rabbit holes on their own but sometimes they get pushed into them without warning (don’t worry, it’s less dangerous than …