The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-12-24
Urah's Progress and Prospects.

U1ah's Progress and Prospects.
Utah was founded and settled, not by
q colony of capitalists, but by a body Of
refugees who had been pillaged and
plundered and driven from their homes
in the far distant state of Illinois. They
brought with them little else than sub
lime faith, remarkable energy, fraternal
union and good leadership to which they
rendered willing obedience. They had a
little grain and few potatoes for seed,
some tools, their wagons and animals
and scanty supply OF absolute neces-
saries by way of food.
This territory was wilderness. Itwas
considered by such adventurous travellers
and hardy mountaineers as had reached
the borders of the Great Salt lake utterly
incapable of supporting human life, an
unproductive arid, untillable desert.
Scorched and parched by burning sun
in the rainless summer, frozen to lifeless-
ness by the rigid winter, such vegetation
as existed being nippsd by the frosts of
early fall, and kept from reviving by no
less severe frosts and piercing blasts of de-
layed spring.
Utah was redeemed from sterility,
then, and her towns and cities and vii
lagos were built up and improved by
cooperative labor, the usual relations OF
employer and employee, of wage payer
and wage-earner, scarcely existing at all
in the beginning and money by way of
remuneration for services rarely circulat-
ing to any great extent for many years.
The country was built up and improved
by main strength and skill, by Drawn and
brain and not by capital.
This fact should be understood in order
to appreciate what has been done since
July, lS47, when white men first at
tempted to make a home in these now
prolific valleys. Even after the city be-
came famous and people hocked to it
from many lands, very few possessed of
more than meagre wealth joined the
colony, but most OF the accessions to the
population were OF persons who ex-
hausted their scanty means in effecting
the journey. Riches were not brought
here for Investment. Utah was chiefly
built up from the development OF its own
resources by hard work and wise econ
omy.
Its progress, however, was rapid. To
most people abroad Utah means Salt Lake
city. But as this city was founded and a
commencement made to give it the APP
pearance of habitable town, other set
Elements followed, and in a few years
cities and towns began to dot the face Of
the country north and south, east anc
west, and available spots for farming and
stock raising were sought out and occu-
pied, until habitations could be found
wherever a stream or a spring could be
utilized for agriculture or domestic use.
Salt Lake city was laid out at the first
for metropolitan place. It's streets were
maze UNIFORM III Nlubu-dA tlSub IOUs
wide-crossing each other at right angles,
squares being reserved for parks as breath
places, bitches being run on each side o
every street, shade trees planted along the
borders. Its great area when organized
as a municipality testifies to the design fol
magnificent city. Other Utah cities anC
towns, though of smaller proportions
were modelled after similar plan, anC
built up in similar fashion.
Intimations of the wealth hidden in the
heart of the mountains were frequent il
early times in Utah. But the grea
colonist and pioneer who led the peopl,
here and whose word was to many almos
as law, advised the avoidance of prospect
ing and the postponement Of any attempts
at mining until the agricultural, stock
raising and manufacturing interest
should be fully developed. He led out il
all these enterprises. He discouraged
burrowing in the hills for minerals ant
counseIed letting them alone when dis
coveries were made
Utah made rapid progress under thes