History of Salt Lake City - Early Years

Early Years

On July 24, 1847 143 men, three women and two children founded Great Salt Lake City several miles to the east of the Great Salt Lake, nestled in the northern most reaches of the Salt Lake Valley. At the time of its founding there were no Indians present in the Salt Lake valley. The first two in this company to enter the Salt Lake valley were Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow. These members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("LDS Church") sought to establish an autonomous religious community and were the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the area now known as Utah. Thousands of Mormon pioneers would arrive in Salt Lake in the coming months and years.

Brigham Young led the Saints west after the death of their church founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. Upon arrival to the Salt Lake valley, Young reportedly confirmed a vision by saying, "It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on." (This is commonly shortened to, "This is the place"). There is a state park in Salt Lake City known as This Is The Place Heritage Park commemorating the spot where Young is supposed to have made the famous statement.

Salt Lake City was originally settled by Mormon Pioneers to be the "New Zion" according to church President and leader Brigham Young. Young originally governed both the territory and church by a High council which enacted the original municipal orders in 1848. This system was later replaced with a city council and mayor style government.

After a very difficult winter and a miraculous crop retrieval, in which Pioneers reported to have been saved from cricket infestation by seagulls (see Miracle of the Gulls), the "Desert Blossomed as the Rose" in the Salt Lake Valley. Early Pioneers survived by maintaining a very tight-knit community. Under Young's leadership Pioneers worked out a system of communal crop sharing within the various ward houses established throughout the Salt Lake Valley.

The California Gold Rush brought many people through the city on their way to seek fortunes. Salt Lake, which was at the cross-roads of the westward trek, became a vital trading point for speculators and prospectors traveling through. They came with goods from the East, such as clothing and other manufactured items, trading with the local farmers for fresh livestock and crops.

The Congress organized the Utah Territory out of the "State of Deseret" in 1850, and a few months later on January 6, 1851 the city was formally organized as "The City of the Great Salt Lake". Originally, Fillmore, Utah was the territorial capital, but in 1856 it was moved to Salt Lake City, where it has stayed ever since. The city's name was officially changed to "Salt Lake City" at the same time.

In 1857, when the Mormon practice of polygamy came to national awareness, President James Buchanan responded to public outcry by sending an army of 2500 soldiers, called the Utah Expedition, to investigate the LDS Church and install a non-LDS governor to replace Brigham Young. In response, Brigham Young imposed martial law, sending his own men to act as guerrillas and harass the soldiers, a conflict called the Utah War. Young eventually surrendered to federal control when the new territorial governor, Alfred Cumming, arrived in Salt Lake City on April 12, 1858. Most troops pulled out at the beginning of the American Civil War.

In order to secure the road to California during the Civil War, more troops arrived under the command of Colonel Patrick Edward Connor in 1862. They settled in the Fort Douglas area east of the city. Thoroughly anti-LDS, Connor viewed the people with disdain, calling them, "a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics, and whores." To dilute their influence he worked with non-LDS business and bank owners, and also encouraged mining. In 1863 some of his troops discovered rich veins of gold and silver in the Wasatch Mountains.

In 1868 Brigham Young founded the Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) as a way to ward off dependency on outside goods and arguably to hinder ex-LDS retailers. Although ZCMI is sometimes credited with being the nation's first department store, a decade earlier New York City's "Marble Palace" and Macy's vied for that title.

Change was inevitable. The world started to come to Salt Lake City in 1869 with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, north of the city. By 1870 Salt Lake had been linked to it via the Utah Central Rail Road. People began to pour into Salt Lake seeking opportunities in mining and other industries.

City government was dominated by the People's Party until 1890. The non-national People's Party was an LDS-controlled political organization, and each of the early mayors of Salt Lake City was LDS. Sparks often flew between LDS city government and non-LDS federal authorities stationed just outside Salt Lake. A dramatic example occurred in 1874 when city police were arrested by US Marshals, who took control of the national election being held in Salt Lake City. Mayor Daniel H. Wells, also an LDS First Presidency Counselor, declared martial law from the balcony of the Old Salt Lake City Hall. Federal troops arrested the mayor, but he was soon released.

In the 1880s, the anti-polygamy Edmunds-Tucker Act systematically denied many prominent LDS Church members the right to vote or hold office. Polygamists were detained in a Federal prison just outside of Salt Lake in the Sugar House area. Consequentially, the non-LDS Liberal Party took control of City government in the 1890 election. Three years later the Liberal Party and People's Party dissolved into national parties anticipating Utah statehood, but both LDS and non-LDS leaders would govern Salt Lake City from that point onward.

The city became Utah's state capital on January 4, 1896, when Utah entered the union upon President Grover Cleveland's decree after the LDS Church agreed to ban polygamy in 1890.