Early Utah History

Early History of Utah

Utah 230 to 65 million years ago when many types of dinosaurs lived in the eastern and southern parts of what is now known as Utah. Utah's history dates back to the Mesozoic Era. Everyday fossilized remnants are still being unearthed in the state.

Between 1A.D. to 1300 the Anasazi and Fremont Indians had an agricultural lifestyle in southern Utah. Many years before the arrival of explorers, mountain men and pioneer pettlers came to the valley. The Utes and the Navajo tribes lived across the area. They were known as the Ancient Puebloan cultures.

http://www.thefurtrapper.com/fremont_indians.htm

In the 1700, the eastern United States were declaring independence from England, Catholic Spanish Explorers and Mexican traders drew journals documenting Utah's terrain, and the native people, as well as plants and animal. Jedediah Smith, William Ashley and Jim Bridger roamed northern Utah, taking advantage of abundant fur trapping opportunities in the 1820s

Mormons migrated to Salt  Lake Valley seeking religious freedom in 1847. In May of 1869 the first transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory, Utah. More than 60,000 Mormons had come to the territory by covered wagon or handcart. Utah became the 45th State in the United States on January4, 1896.

Utah which ranks as the tenth state in the United States of America as to its size, is located between 37 and 42 degrees north latitude and 109 and 114 degrees west longitude and comprises an area of about 84,000 square miles. The main altitude of the state is 6,100 feet above sea level. Utah is bounded on the north by Idaho and Wyoming, on the east by Colorado, on the south by Arizona, and on the west by Nevada. The country is crossed mostly from the north to south by mountains ranges, the principle one being the Wasatch Mountains (with peaks towering from 7,000 to 15,000 feet in height), which might be termed the backbone of the state. This variation in attitude and consequent climate conditions permits the cultivation of a large variety of vegetables and cereals.

The state leads in the production of silver and copper. Coal, lead and zinc are also mined extensively, and Utah holds second place in the United States in production of ores of the rare metals uranium and vanadium.

Agriculture and cattle raising are largely carried on, and in the Great Basin area large sections of apparently irreclaimable desert have responded generously to irrigation. In the north central part of the state is the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—a body of salt water, 80 miles long by 30 miles wide, remnant of the gigantic Lake Bonneville of the pre-historic days.

The settlement of Utah by Anglo-Saxons was commenced in July, 1847, when Brigham Young, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, consisting of 143 men, 3 women and 2 children. Behind them at different points for a thousand miles, spanning the distance from the Missouri River, the original company was followed by nine other companies, comprising in all about 2,000 souls. To the barren, alkali-covered desert they came, but to them it was a haven of rest, for their leader, Brigham Young said, This Is The Place, where they should be, as foretold by their prophet, Joseph, become a great and mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.