TWHP


Salt Lake City, Mormon Temple   

Salt Lake City, Utah, was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young and his Mormon followers following an arduous trek across the plains. Fleeing religious persecution, fewer than 200 people settled the land by the large, salty lake, and they immediately planted crops and soon after laid out streets. The next year, as a result of the Mexican War, the land became territory of the United States, a development not welcome by the once-beleaguered religious non-conformists. Initially the town grew in isolation, but after the Gold Rush, it became a major stop on the overland trail. Mutual hostility often characterized relations between the resident Mormons and the traveling Americans, the latter often fleeced should they display a prejudice against the sect.

Self-contained, industrious and well-organized, the citizens thrived given their status as an island of cultivation on a long, hungry trail. Converts from Europe--especially England--supplemented the local population growth, important since non-Mormons didn't integrate easily into the culture. After the mineral finds of Nevada sent miners back east looking for other promising discoveries in the 1860s and '70s, Salt Lake City benefitted as a supply center to the new industry, mines opening up in surrounding regions while farms extended throughout the lake valley and beyond. When the Transcontinental Railroad opened up in 1869, the city began its full integration with the United States it had once detested and feared. The abolition of polygamy in the 1890s eliminated the most objectionable feature of the religion as far as most Americans were concerned, and the Utah territory Salt Lake City dominated finally became a state in 1896.

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