How World War II triggered a run on pianos in Utah

What drove the news: "Pianos Wanted Immediately," trumpeted a Utah newspaper ad in 1944.

Behind the scenes: They were to be used in housing developments that popped up around northern Utah during World War II.

• That's when the sleepy, rural area around Hill Air Force Base rapidly transformed into a crucial military supply operation and defense industry hub.

Zoom in: A piano was considered a staple household furnishing for a long time.

• By the 1940s, Americans were only about a generation into recorded music and radio — and the sound quality wasn't great. Folks were still used to making their own music as day-to-day entertainment.
• The piano, once considered an aristocratic luxury, had become an essential middle-class status symbol. And with the post-Depression economic recovery of the 1940s, people could afford them again.

The intrigue: Nowadays you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an heirloom piano that someone is trying to sell.

Previously in Old News

• May Day used to rock in Utah
• The Hi-Fi murders shocked the nation
• How "SLC Punk!" brought Utah counterculture to the masses
• When the American Indian Movement protested the Mormon Church
• The mythical hole in the Great Salt Lake