Former LDS Church historian Leonard J. Arrington died Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 at his Salt Lake home.
Called "the dean of Mormon historians," Mr. Arrington was a prolific writer and spent a decade presiding over the Historian's Office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is credited with influencing a generation of Mormon historians.He was 81.
"It is with sadness that we note the passing of Leonard J. Arrington, the former church historian," said the LDS First Presidency in a Thursday statement. "We note with appreciation his substantial contribution to the church and to the community and express our condolences to the Arrington family in their loss."
Mr. Arrington's works and publications enjoyed cross-section appeal. History scholars respected his honest and straight-forward research -- while amateur buffs and church members enjoyed Arrington's accessible writing style.
His work, "Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints," is considered a landmark book of LDS history, along with his acclaimed biography "Brigham Young: An American Moses."
"(Arrington) was, without question, the major historian of Utah and the LDS Church of the century," said Davis Bitton, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Utah who worked with Arrington at the church historian's office.
Bitton called Mr. Arrington "a mentor" to young historians, who were influenced by his thorough, often back-breaking research methods.
"He didn't take any shortcuts," Bitton said.
Brigham Young University history professor Ronald Walker was a graduate student when he met Mr. Arrington. Walker remembers once sitting at his mentor's dining room table, listening to letters from young Arrington readers.
Mr. Arrington, recalled Walker, was "so proud" he could share "the intellectual integrity of Mormonism" with the youths of the church.
Jan Shipps, a prominent historian whose work focuses on Mormon and religious history, said Mr. Arrington presented LDS history without asking for judgments of the faith's spiritual legitimacy.
"Before (Arrington's) 'Great Basin Kingdom' there was probably no work which did not require the reader to take sides," said Shipps, a professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.
On a personal note, Shipps said Mr. Arrington's encouragement played "an important role" in her LDS research and career path.
Born to a farming family in Twin Falls, Idaho, Mr. Arrington graduated from the University of Idaho and later obtained a doctorate in economics from the University of North Carolina. While studying at UNC he married Grace Fort, a native Tarheel.
She passed away in 1982 and he later married Harriet Ann Horne.
Mr. Arrington spent 26 years as a professor in the economics department at Utah State University. When not in the classroom, he published hundreds of scholarly articles on Mormon and Western history in national and academic journals.
For two years in the late 1950s, Mr. Arrington was a Fulbright lecturer in Italy, lecturing in Italian at the Universities of Genoa and Venice and publishing an Italian text on the economic history of the United States.
He was also a research fellow at Huntington Library, an instructor at North Carolina State University and a visiting professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles.
In 1972, Mr. Arrington was appointed church historian, the first professionally trained historian to fill the office. Under his watch, the Church Historian's Office witnessed many historic changes and a more open approach to the LDS Church Archives.
When his tenure as church historian ended in 1982, Mr. Arrington continued his prolific research and writing. He later held the Lemuel H. Red Professor of History Chair at Brigham Young University and was the director of BYU's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History.
In 1996, he was awarded the Governor's Award in the Humanities.
Mr. Arrington's memoir, "Adventures of a Church Historian," was published in 1998.
Mr. Arrington is survived by his wife, Harriet, two sons and a daughter, four stepchildren, nine grandchildren and 10 stepgrandchildren.
Funeral services are planned for Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the Parleys Stake Center, 1870 E. Parleys Canyon Blvd. (2300 South).