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Utah wants your help in preserving the historical records around the 1915 execution of labor icon Joe Hill

The radical folk singer was put to death in a controversial trial, which documents held by the state could help illuminate.

(Jeremy Harmon | Tribune file photo) Joseph Hillstrom, known to most by his Industrial Workers of the World pen name, Joe Hill, was arrested and convicted of the murder of John G. Morrison. Prosecutors contended Hill and an accomplice, believed to be Otto Applequist, entered the Morrisons’ grocery store in downtown Salt Lake City on Jan. 10, 1914, near closing time. The elder Morrison was shot in the back. His teenage son Arling, the state argued, shot Hill. Arling was shot three times by the accomplice and died instantly. John Morrison died at a nearby hospital. Hill was convicted and eventually executed. Applequist was never found.