How a Sunken Battleship Became Part of Washington City's Holiday Calendar

On the cool morning of December 7, 2023, veterans and residents gathered at Veterans Park for Washington City's first remembrance of a ship that sank at Pearl Harbor. Mayor Kress Staheli and Councilman Kurt Ivie spoke. A local florist donated 58 white roses, one for each crew member killed aboard the USS Utah, plus one more for Nancy Wagner, whose ashes rest in the wreck. All through the event the bell in the city tower kept ringing, 67 times in all: 58 for the crew, once for Nancy and eight for airmen who had just died in a crash in Japan, as St. George News reported.

The ceremony turns three this December. It has changed what the stretch from Veterans Day to early December means in Washington City. The parade, the tree lighting and the Pearl Harbor observance used to be three separate dates on the city calendar. Now they read as one season of remembrance, held almost entirely on the oldest block in town. This year it carries extra weight, because Monday, December 7, 2026, is the 85th anniversary of the attack.

A ship called "forgotten" ended up in a Utah city hall

The USS Utah was moored on the far side of Ford Island when the attack began on December 7, 1941. According to the National Park Service, torpedoes hit it in the opening minutes. The ship rolled over, sank fast and took 58 crew members with it. It was never salvaged. It still lies where it went down, and the public can only reach its memorial on guided bus tours to Ford Island.

That limited access helps explain the nickname. The USS Arizona memorial draws the crowds, and the Utah came to be known as the "forgotten ship." Councilman Ivie told Fox 13 in November 2025 that the label is what started the city's effort:

"That didn't sit well with any of us. Forgotten ship, Utah, are you kidding me?"

A 2023 St. George News story says a Washington County Coast Guard veteran found a 48-star flag for sale, saw the USS Utah inscription and brought it to the city to stay on display at City Hall. Fox 13's 2025 account credits local resident John Olsen with finding the flag among old belongings. Ivie described it to Fox 13 as an individual sailor's flag from the crew quarters below deck. The City Council approved an annual remembrance in 2023, and the first one followed that December.

Ivie also tied the effort to the city's own wartime record. He told Fox 13 that 104 of Washington's 510 residents enlisted and served in 1941, about one in five people in town. For a community that size, a ship named for the state and lost on the first day of the war hit close to home.

The connection has grown since then. Fox 13 reported that when the new nuclear submarine USS Utah was christened in October 2025, Washington City was the only Utah community to send a delegation in person, and the city was chosen as the vessel's sponsor. Mayor Staheli told the station the submarine is nearly 400 feet long.

The block where most of it happens

Every event in this season except the New Year's fireworks takes place within a few hundred feet of Main and Telegraph, much of it in buildings put up by the Cotton Mission settlers.

• Old School and Museum, 25 E Telegraph St. The city's page says an adobe schoolhouse went up here in 1863 and was replaced in 1877 by a two-story sandstone school. That building now houses the Washington City Museum.
• Heritage Hall, 50 N Main St. This is the old gym on the northeast corner of Telegraph and Main, a 2,600-square-foot addition built onto the schoolhouse in 1922. It has a basalt lava rock foundation, sandstone walls quarried from a nearby hillside, and maple floors about 100 years old that were refinished in a 2024 remodel. The city's Recreation, Arts, and Parks tax paid for the work.
• Veterans Park, 75 E Telegraph St. The city also calls it "Old City Park." It has shade trees, a covered pavilion, a playground, restrooms and a playing field.
• Relief Society Building, 75 W Telegraph St. The Washington Ward built it in 1875 and added a west wing around 1904. Over the years it has served as a meetinghouse, post office, co-op, fire department meeting place and funeral parlor. The city calls it Washington's oldest standing public building.
• City Hall, 111 N 100 E. The lobby holds the USS Utah display. Just outside on 100 East, near 100 North, the Washington County Historical Society lists a separate Washington City Veterans Memorial.

Heritage Hall's 2024 reopening is the newest piece of this picture. When the old gym came back as a community hall, the USS Utah remembrance gained an indoor home on the same corner as the park, the museum and the parade's finish line. You can stand at Main and Telegraph and see nearly every place the season uses.

Four dates, one route

Here is the 2026 schedule from the Washington City events calendar and the city's celebrations page, in order:

1. Veterans Day Parade and Program, Wednesday, November 11, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The parade starts at the Washington City Cemetery and ends at Main and Telegraph. A service follows at Veterans Park, then a veterans luncheon.
2. Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, Monday, November 30, at dusk. The city holds it the first Monday after Thanksgiving at Veterans Park, with free hot cocoa and donuts. Clocks fell back on November 1, so dusk comes early.
3. Pearl Harbor/U.S.S. Utah Remembrance, Monday, December 7, 6 to 8 p.m., Heritage Hall. The December calendar lists it at 50 N. Main, which is the address on the hall's own page. This is the 85th anniversary of the attack.
4. New Year's Eve Fireworks, Thursday, December 31, 10 p.m. These launch from the baseball and softball complex. It's the one event that leaves the old block.

The first three all land within about a block of each other. In under four weeks, the corner of Main and Telegraph serves as a parade finish, a holiday gathering spot and a memorial hall for a ship lost at Pearl Harbor. The tree lighting falls one week before Pearl Harbor Day, both on Mondays, so the same park and corner host the city's most festive night and its most solemn one back to back.

The format has changed over the years. In 2024, St. George News listed an 8 a.m. ceremony at Veterans Park on December 7, plus an afternoon open house with the recovered flag and other artifacts at Rowdy's Range in St. George. For 2026, the city's calendar lists the evening program at Heritage Hall.

The names in the City Hall lobby

You don't have to wait for a ceremony to see what the remembrance is about. Fox 13 reported that the City Hall lobby display pairs the recovered flag with a model of the ship built by the city's Public Works Department and a plaque listing the crew members who were killed.

One of those names is Chief Watertender Peter Tomich. As the ship took on water, he stayed below to keep the boilers under control so they wouldn't explode, giving the rest of the crew time to get off. He went down with the ship and was later awarded the Medal of Honor. Fox 13 put the number who survived at 461, and reported that the last living survivor died in August 2025.

That makes December 7, 2026, the first round-number anniversary with no USS Utah survivors left to attend anywhere. The plaque on 100 East and the ceremony on Main Street are part of how the ship stays remembered now, from a town of 510 that sent 104 of its people to the war. For a fall built around a smaller radius, our earlier guide to fall in Washington City within three miles of Telegraph covers the farms and trailheads, and the Washington neighborhood page has more on the community.

Holly Gardner loves the corner of Main and Telegraph, and the stories inside its sandstone walls are a big part of why. If you have family in town for the tree lighting or want help finding a home within walking distance of Veterans Park, Holly would be glad to talk. Schedule a free consultation whenever the timing feels right.