Salt Lake City - venue for the Winter Olympics. It's an interesting place

�

�

Q.� So how was it founded

A.� On 23 July, 1847, a small vanguard of Mormon pioneers reached the valley in Utah and made camp on the grassy east bank of a stream they named City Creek. [Click here to read the story of the Mormons.] Within two hours of arriving, they had begun ploughing the ground - but it was too dry, so they dammed a nearby mountain stream and soaked the terrain. Five acres were ploughed that day. Potatoes and other seeds were planted the next morning.

�

Q.� Who was their leader

A.� Brigham Young. He arrived the next day with more pioneers. Within a few days, plans were drawn for Great Salt Lake City, named after the salty inland lake that dominated the desert to the north-west. Blocks were arranged on a grid pattern in 10-acre squares, separated by streets 132ft wide - 'wide enough for a team of four oxen and a covered wagon to turn around'. Within a year, the valley became a territory of the United States.

�

Q.� And it grew

A.� The gold rush of 1849 brought a flood of travellers through Salt Lake en route to California. Residents of Salt Lake City supplied the prospectors with fresh livestock and crops in return for clothing, tools and manufactured goods.

Lead and silver were discovered in Bingham Canyon in 1863 and hundreds of copper, silver, gold and lead mines were opened in nearby canyons. Some mine owners built gracious homes along South Temple, once known as Brigham Street.

�

In 1869, workers laid tracks for the nation's first transcontinental railroad system. Utah was now connected to the east and west, boosting Salt Lake Valley's economy by opening new markets for its farm and mining products.

�

Q.� A population boom

A.� Salt Lake City's population increased from 20,800 to 44,800 (116%) between 1880 and 1890. Land prices rocketed - and so did health problems. The streets were filthy, as were many water supplies. Citizens suffered from typhoid, smallpox and tuberculosis. Then there was the air pollution ...

�

Q.� Why

A.� Caused by the choking coal smoke, much of it from the ore smelters. Farmers complained of damage to their crops and livestock from smog. Legal action was taken and most of the central Salt Lake Valley smelters closed or moved.

�

Q.� So city life improved

A.� Gradually. On 4 January, 1896, President Grover Cleveland admitted Utah as the 45th state in the Union, with Salt Lake City as its capital. Soon the clean-up started - and not just pollution. The thriving vice industry - a throwback to the gold rush days - was moved from the town centre. The city government made a deal with Dora Topham, who reigned over the prostitutes as Belle London, to move to a district between Fifth and Sixth West and First and Second South.

�

Salt Lake residents were determined this could be an urban paradise and the Civic Improvement League urged the mayor and council to make the city into a beautiful and functionally planned urban place. In April, 1906, Mayor Ezra Thompson announced plans to convert a number of streets into landscaped boulevards. It was the start of a scheme that is still celebrated today.

�

Q.� And what of today

A.� It's a high-tech place. Utah has one of the largest concentrations of computer software and biomedical firms; the youngest population; one of the highest birth rates; the second-lowest death rate; the healthiest population; the highest literacy rate; and the highest number of people with a college education.

�

Salt Lake City is known as the Crossroads of the West: at least half of America's population is located within a two-and-a-half-hour flight.

�

To ask a question about People & Places, click here

Steve Cunningham