Introduction to History of Utah
Prehistoric Indians of the Desert Culture inhabited what is now Utah from about 9000 to 7000 B.C. The Anasazi Indians arrived in the first century A.D. They and their descendants, the Pueblos, dominated the region for some 1,300 years until forced out by a prolonged drought. When the first Europeans reached the area, in the 16th century, the major tribes were the Ute, in the Colorado Plateau area; the Paiute, in southwestern Utah; and the Gosiute, around the Great Salt Lake.
Important dates in Utah1776 Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Dominguez made the first far-reaching exploration of the Utah region.1824-1825 Jim Bridger probably was the first white person to see Great Salt Lake.1847 Brigham Young and the first Mormon pioneers arrived in the Great Salt Lake region.1848 The United States won the Utah area from Mexico.1849 The Mormons created the State of Deseret, and adopted their first constitution.1850 Congress established the Utah Territory.1860-1861 The pony express crossed Utah.1861 Telegraph lines met at Salt Lake City, providing the first transcontinental telegraph service.1869 The first transcontinental railroad system was completed at Promontory.1890 Mormons in Utah were advised by their church to give up polygamy. Polygamy was prohibited after 1904.1896 Utah became the 45th state on January 4.1913 The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation completed the Strawberry River reservoir, the state's first large reclamation project.1952 Rich uranium deposits were found near Moab.1959 Utah became an important missile-producing state.1964 Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon dams were completed.1967 Construction began on the Central Utah Project, a program to provide water for Utah's major growth areas.1996 Utah marked the centennial (100th anniversary) of its statehood.2003 Lieutenant Governor Olene Walker became Utah's first woman governor after Governor Michael O. Leavitt resigned to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Walker's term ended in 2005.European Exploration
An exploring party from the expedition of Francisco Coronado may have entered the region as early as the mid-16th century, but the first major exploration did not take place until 1776. That year two Franciscan friars, Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Domínguez, led an expedition into Utah. They were seeking a direct route from Sante Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, California, and their efforts resulted in the establishment of trade routes between New Mexico, Utah, and California. The Spanish and later the Mexicans claimed the territory that became Utah, but neither ever exercised actual control.
During the late 1700's and early 1800's, Utah was visited by more explorers, by settlers on their way west, and by British and American fur traders and trappers. The trappers, also called mountain men, included Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company; Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, and William H. Ashley, representing the Rocky Mountain Fur Company; and Etienne Provost, Antoine Robidou, and Kit Carson. During the winter of 1824–25, Bridger and Provost independently discovered the Great Salt Lake.
Several trading posts were established in Utah in the 1830's and 1840's. Fort Kit Carson (1833), Fort Davy Crockett (1837), Fort Robidou (1837), and Fort Bridger (1843) were built in the eastern mountains of Utah. Fort Buenaventura was set up by Miles Goodyear near present-day Ogden in 1846. These posts all were eventually abandoned or were destroyed by Indians. A major scientific exploration of Utah for the United States government was undertaken by John C. Frémont, 1843–45, even though the territory was still part of Mexico. His detailed reports sparked interest in the region and the maps he prepared were later used by pioneers traveling to the Far West.
Mormon Settlement
By the 1840's, the fur trade had declined, and virtually the only whites to set foot in Utah were pioneers on their way west. Settlement began in 1847 when a vanguard of 148 Mormons, led by Brigham Young, followed the pioneer trails into the mountain valleys of Utah. They made their first settlement at the site of present-day Salt Lake City. The Mormons had been driven out of their previous home, Nauvoo, Illinois, and were seeking a remote area to practice their religion and avoid persecution. Here, in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, they planned to establish God's earthly kingdom, their Zion.
The advance party immediately began to plow and irrigate the desert land, preparing for the arrival of additional Mormons. In 1848 swarms of crickets threatened to destroy the first crops. However, large flocks of California gulls appeared, devoured the crickets, and saved the crops. During the first four years of settlement, nearly 12,000 Mormons came to Utah. Mormon communities were established in the mountain valleys north and south-southwest of Salt Lake City. Settlements included Ogden, Logan, Provo, Fillmore, and Cedar City.
Utah Territory
Meanwhile, the United States had acquired Utah from Mexico in 1848, as a result of the Mexican War. In 1849 the Mormons petitioned the U.S. Congress to admit their region, which they called the State of Deseret, to the Union. Congress denied the petition, but organized Utah Territory in 1850, with Young as governor and Fillmore as the capital. (Salt Lake City became the capital in 1856.) The territory encompassed Utah, most of Nevada, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. (Land cessions in the 1860's reduced Utah to the size it is today.)
During the 1850's, thousands of additional Mormon settlers arrived in Utah, large numbers of them coming from Great Britain and Scandinavia. By mid-decade, the population was nearly 40,000. Although the Mormons had sought peaceful relations with Indian tribes in the area, the expansion of settlement led to clashes. Wars were fought, 1853–54, and 1865–68. After the latter conflict, many of the Indians were removed to reservations.
From the earliest days of the territory, relations with the federal government had been strained by the Mormons' determination to run Utah free from federal control. Problems also arose over the practice of polygamy. (Mormon law allowed men to have several wives.) In 1857 President James Buchanan appointed non-Mormons to the governorship and to other territorial offices. The Mormons protested this action, and Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah to support his appointees. Young mobilized the Nauvoo Legion, the Mormon militia. Militia companies burned Army supply trains, but before the two armies could confront one another in full-scale battle, the "Utah War" was settled by compromise. However, antagonism between Mormons and the federal government continued for decades.
The only bloodshed that occurred during the war was the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which an Indian party that included a few Mormons killed 120 members of a wagon train passing through Utah.
Utah underwent significant development beginning in the late 1860's. On May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad from the east and the Central Pacific Railroad from the west joined their tracks at Promontory, Utah, marking completion of the first transcontinental railway. ( The coming of the railroad gave the Mormons new markets for their crops and made it economically feasible for them to begin exploiting Utah's mineral resources. The railroad, however, also ended the Mormons' long isolation. By 1880 Utah's population had risen to 144,000, almost double that of 1869, and included more than 20,000 non-Mormons.
Opposition to Mormon economic and political domination of the territory and to the practice of polygamy had risen steadily in the 1870's and 1880's in other parts of the country and among non-Mormons in Utah. The federal government also was increasingly concerned about the Mormons' continuing resistance to outside authority, which it viewed as disloyalty to the United States. As a result, repeated petitions for Utah statehood (1856, 1862, 1882, and 1887) were denied. In 1887 the Edmonds-Tucker Act, depriving Mormons of their civil rights and confiscating Mormon church property, was passed.
In 1890 the Mormon church declared that it would no longer sanction polygamy. Civil rights were then restored and confiscated property returned to the church. In 1895 a constitution was written and ratified. It prohibited polygamy and gave women the right to vote. Statehood was finally granted on January 4, 1896, and Utah entered the Union as the 45th state.
Working on the Transcontinental Railway. Shown are workers on the Central Pacific at their camp in Utah in 1869. The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, completing the first coast-to-coast railroad.Modern Development
Although many non-Mormons came to Utah, Mormons remained in the majority and continued to dominate economic, social, and political life in the state in the 20th century.
Construction of large federal irrigation projects after 1900 brought much more land under cultivation. There was further growth in the mining industry, primarily in copper and coal. Industrial expansion resulted in increased immigration, with many immigrants coming from foreign countries, and in the rise of a radical labor movement, led by the Industrial Workers of the World and the Western Federation of Miners.
The early 20th century also saw the birth of an anti-Mormon political party in Utah. The American party, formed in 1904, combined elements of the national Progressive movement with anti-Mormonism. The party controlled municipal government in Salt Lake City early in the 1900's and for a time had an influence in the state legislature. The result was the enactment of much Progressive legislation and the adoption of the initiative and the referendum (1917).
World War I further stimulated industrial growth as well as mining production. The two decades after the war, however, were characterized by general economic decline in Utah, especially in the agricultural and mining sectors. Many people left the state. During World War II, increased demand for agricultural products and the establishment of war-related industries revived the economy.
In the postwar period, population increased and business and industry expanded. In 1948 Utah and other states of the Colorado River drainage area arranged for a mutually agreeable allocation of the river's waters. This increase in water supply for irrigation and power aided Utah's agriculture and industry. In 1952 the discovery of uranium in the deserts of Utah led to a prospecting boom.
In the 1960's and 1970's, military installations, federal civilian employment, and defense-related manufacturing became increasingly important in the state's economy. In the mid-1980's, the Great Salt Lake rose to its highest recorded level, causing much flooding. To prevent future flooding, the state, in 1987, built a monitoring and control system that pumps excess water from the lake into a natural basin in the nearby desert. In the mid-1990's, rapid growth in the state's economy and population led to much disagreement concerning the use of public land.
The Central Utah Project, started in 1967 to supply water to growing industrial regions faced with shortages, continued working on the challenge into the late 1990's and early 2000's. Additionally, land use was under contention, some Utah citizens favoring conservation of the deserts and mountains while others wanting to begin exercises there such as mining and constructing power plants. Besides natural resources, another problem was the high cost of education in Utah; this is because the state has the highest average length of time that its students spend in school, in part due to Mormon opinion on the subject.
In 2003, President George W. Bush named Utah Governor Michael O. Leavitt to be head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Lieutenant Governor Olene Walker took over his position and became Utah's first female governor.