Utah's most questionable early Thanksgiving tradition: Raw oysters

• This is Old News, where we pry open the shells of Utah history, whether or not we expect to find pearls.

By the numbers: Utah is, like, 500 miles from the nearest ocean.

• And we're 1,800 miles from Baltimore, where most of the oysters came from — without the advantages of overnight air shipping or modern refrigeration.

Yes, but: Oysters were huge in the 1800s, and newcomers to the North American interior weren't about to give them up.

What they said: "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and according to the time-honored custom of our country, we intend to lay aside all our worldly cares and labors and devote a part of the day in eating turkey, raw oysters, chicken and salmon salad," the editors of the Corinne Journal Reporter wrote in 1872 from Box Elder County.

Catch up quick: The first fresh oysters mentioned in Utah newspapers came from San Francisco in 1866, "six or seven days out from their 'native element.'"

• Even before the transcontinental railroad was finished, merchants were taking orders for fresh oysters hauled in via Omaha.

Flashback: Starting in the 1850s, the Deseret News occasionally campaigned for oyster farming experiments along the Great Salt Lake, but that didn't go anywhere.

The bottom line: After the trains got the goods here a bit quicker, oyster stuffing reigned supreme for decades as the turkey interior of choice.

Previously in Old News

• Glen Canyon Dam turns 70
• "Little factory" enters Utah's lexicon
• When white people came to Utah
• What it took to get Warren Jeffs into prison
• Baby's first liquor license