page_title: History of Salt Lake City
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: History of Salt Lake City / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 1869
context_page_description: Originally, the Salt Lake Valley was inhabited by the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute and Ute Native American tribes. At the time of the founding of Salt Lake City the valley was within the territory of the Northwestern Shoshone, who had their seasonal camps along streams within the valley and in adjacent valleys. One of the local Shoshone tribes, the Western Goshute tribe, referred to the Great Salt Lake as Pi'a-pa, meaning "big water", or Ti'tsa-pa, meaning "bad water". The land was treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone was ever recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States. Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, a Spanish Franciscan missionary is considered the first European explorer in the area in 1776, but only came as far north as Utah valley, some 60 miles south of the Salt Lake City area. The first US visitor to see the Salt Lake area was John Chugg in 1824. U.S. Army officer John C. Frémont surveyed the Great Salt Lake and the Salt Lake Valley in 1843 and 1845. The Donner Party, a group of ill-fated pioneers, traveled through the Great Salt Lake Valley a year before the Mormon pioneers.
context_section_description: On July 24, 1847 143 men, three women and two children founded Great Salt Lake City several miles to the east of the Great Salt Lake, nestled in the northern most reaches of the Salt Lake Valley. The first two in this company to enter the Salt Lake valley were Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow.  These members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("LDS Church") sought to establish an autonomous religious community and were the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the area now known as Utah. Thousands of Mormon pioneers would arrive in Salt Lake in the coming months and years.
  Brigham Young led the Saints west after the death of Joseph Smith.  Upon arrival to the Salt Lake valley, Young had a vision by saying, "It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on."  (This is commonly shortened to, "This is the place"). There is a state park in Salt Lake City known as This Is The Place Heritage Park commemorating the spot where Young made the famous statement.
  Settlers buried thirty-six Native Americans in one grave after an outbreak of measles occurred during the winter of 1847.
  Salt Lake City was originally settled by Latter-day Saint Pioneers to be the New Zion according to church President and leader Brigham Young. Young originally governed both the territory and church by a High council which enacted the original municipal orders in 1848. This system was later replaced with a city council and mayor style government.
  After a very difficult winter and a miraculous crop retrieval, in which Pioneers reported to have been saved from cricket infestation by seagulls (see Miracle of the Gulls), the "Desert Blossomed as the Rose" in the Salt Lake Valley. Early Pioneers survived by maintaining a very tight-knit community. Under Young's leadership Pioneers worked out a system of communal crop sharing within the various ward houses established throughout the Salt Lake Valley.
  The California Gold Rush brought many people through the city on their way to seek fortunes. Salt Lake, which was at the cross-roads of the westward trek, became a vital trading point for speculators and prospectors traveling through. They came with goods from the East, such as clothing and other manufactured items, trading with the local farmers for fresh livestock and crops.
  The Congress organized the Utah Territory out of the "State of Deseret" in 1850, and a few months later on January 6, 1851 the city was formally organized as "The City of the Great Salt Lake". Originally, Fillmore, Utah was the territorial capital, but in 1856 it was moved to Salt Lake City, where it has stayed ever since. The city's name was officially changed to "Salt Lake City" at the same time.
  In 1857, when the Mormon practice of polygamy came to national awareness, President James Buchanan responded to public outcry by sending an army of 2500 soldiers, called the Utah Expedition, to investigate the LDS Church and install a non-LDS governor to replace Brigham Young. In response, Brigham Young imposed martial law, sending the Utah militia to harass the soldiers, a conflict called the Utah War. Young eventually surrendered to federal control when the new territorial governor, Alfred Cumming, arrived in Salt Lake City on April 12, 1858. Most troops pulled out at the beginning of the American Civil War.
  In order to secure the road to California during the Civil War, more troops arrived under the command of Colonel Patrick Edward Connor in 1862. They settled in the Fort Douglas area east of the city. Thoroughly anti-LDS, Connor viewed the people with disdain, calling them, "a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics, and whores." To dilute their influence he worked with non-LDS business and bank owners, and also encouraged mining. In 1863 some of his troops discovered rich veins of gold and silver in the Wasatch Mountains.
  In 1868 Brigham Young founded the Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) as a way to ward off dependency on outside goods and arguably to hinder ex-LDS retailers. Although ZCMI is sometimes credited with being the nation's first d
caption: Street view, Salt Lake City, 1869
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