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Early peoples
Native
Americans have lived in what is now Utah
for several thousand years. Most
archeological evidence dates the earliest habitation to
about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. These paleolithic people
utilized habitat near the Great Basin's
swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds,
and small game animals. Big game, including
bison, mammoths and
ground sloths, also were
attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the
mega-fauna disappeared, while bison,
mule deer and antelope became
more predominant.
Around 8000
BCE, a very different people began to utilize the Utah area.
Known as the Desert Archaic, these people sheltered in caves
which edge areas of the Great
Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous
Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of
cattails and other salt tolerant
plants such as pickleweed,
burro weed and
sedge. Red meat appears to have been
more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the
atlatl to hunt water fowl,
ducks, small animals and antelope.
Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit
skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made
from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose
and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have
dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost
unoccupied for 1,000 years.
The
Fremont culture, named from
sites near the Fremont River
in Utah, lived in what is now north and
western Utah and parts of Nevada,
Idaho and Colorado
from approximately 600 to 1300 CE. These people lived in
areas close to water sources that had been previously
occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some
relationship with them. However, their use of new
technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont
technologies include:
-
use of
the bow and arrow while hunting,
-
building pithouse shelters,
-
growing
maize and probably beans and
squash,
-
building above ground granaries of
adobe or stone,
-
creating and decorating low-fired
pottery ware,
-
producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as
petroglyphs and
pictographs.
The
ancient Puebloan culture,
also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to
the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered around
the present-day Four
Corners area of the
Southwest United States, including the
San Juan River region of Utah.
Archaeologists debate when this
distinct culture emerged, but
cultural development seems to date from about the common
era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is
generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people
was around the 1200 CE.
Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed
pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings.
They were excellent craftsmen, producing
turquoise jewelry and fine pottery.
The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the
people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and
squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced
elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also
built structures, some known as kivas,
apparently designed solely for cultural and religious
rituals.
These two
later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to
have established trading relationships. They also shared
enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the
cultures may have common roots in the early American
Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct
throughout most of their history. These two well established
cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic
change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about
1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and
ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American
southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river
drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
In about
1200 CE, Shoshonean speaking
peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have
originated in southern California and shifted into a desert
environment due to population pressure along the coast. They
were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle
utilizing roots and seeds, including the
pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created
pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in
Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal
organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah
country. The Shoshone in the north
and northeast, the Gosiutes in the
northwest, the Utes in the central
and eastern parts of the region and the Southern
Paiutes in the southwest. Initially,
there seems to have been very little conflict between these
groups.
In the
early 1500s, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southwest
also saw a new people, the Díne or
Navajo, part of a greater group of plains
Athabaskan speakers moved into the
Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo,
this language group contained people that were later known
as Apaches, including the Lipan,
Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.
Athabaskans
were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and
were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog
nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the
17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had
abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first
specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the
1620s, referring to the people in the
Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north
west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the
term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the
Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading
and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to
the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the
Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah
and western Colorado.
European exploration
Francisco Vásquez
de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern
Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary
Cíbola.
A group led
by two Catholic
priests—sometimes called the
Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left
Santa Fe in 1776, hoping
to find a route to the California
coast. The expedition traveled as far north as
Utah Lake and encountered the
native residents.
Fur
trappers—including Jim Bridger—explored
some regions of Utah in the early 1800s. The city of
Provo was named for one such man,
Étienne Provost, who visited
the area in 1825. The city of Ogden,
Utah is named for a brigade leader of the
Hudson Bay Company,
Peter Skene Ogden who
trapped in the Weber Valley.
Mormon settlement
Members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known
as Mormon pioneers, first
came to the Salt Lake Valley
on July 24, 1847.
At the time, the territory which would become the state of
Utah was still under the control of Mexico.
As a consequence of the
Mexican-American War, the land became the territory of
the United States upon the
signing of the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2,
1848. The treaty was ratified by the
United States Senate on
March 10.
Colonizing the desert
Upon
arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons literally had
to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems,
laid out farms, built houses, churches and schools. Access
to water was crucially important. Almost immediately,
Brigham Young set out to
identify and claim additional community sites. While it was
difficult to find large areas in the
Great Basin where water sources were dependable and
growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important
subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.
Shortly
after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in
1847, the community of Bountiful
was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands
purchased from trapper
Miles Goodyear in present day
Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and
Provo were founded. Also that
year, at the invitation of Ute
chief Wakara, settlers moved into the
Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of
Manti.
Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new
territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary
efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in
Fort Lemhi, Idaho,
Las Vegas, Nevada and
Elk Mountain
in east central Utah.
The
experiences of returning members of the
Mormon Battalion were also
important in establishing new communities. On their journey
west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers
and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern
California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their
families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through
southern Nevada and southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, senior
Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for
settlement sites, minerals and other resources. His report
encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in
Iron County, near present
day Cedar City. These
southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements
in St. George, Utah, Las
Vegas and San Bernadino,
California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.
State of Deseret (proposed)
Statehood
was petitioned for in 1849/50 using the name
Deseret. The proposed
State of Deseret would have
been quite large, encompising all of what is now Utah, and
portions of territory of what would become Idaho, Nevada,
Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The
name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young
as a symbol of industry, and the name itself derived from a
reference in the Book of Mormon.
The petition was rejected by Congress. One reason for the
rejection certainly was the reluctance of Congress to grant
such a large piece of territory to a state controlled and
populated by Mormons. Another reason may have been the low
population levels, however, other states achieved statehood
with small populations, but did so without the stigma of
being connected to Mormons. It is unclear how much Congress
knew about the Mormon practice of polygamy in 1849/50. In
any case statehood would be denied until the year 1896.
Utah Territory
In 1850,
the Utah Territory was created
with the Compromise of 1850,
and Fillmore was designated
the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as
the territorial capital.
Disputes
between the Mormon inhabitants and the
US Government
intensified after
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice
of polygamy was known to the government. The polygamous
practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854,
would be the major reason Utah was denied statehood until
almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.
After news
of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS
Church were quickly viewed as un-American and rebellious. In
1857, after news of a false rebellion spread, the government
sent troops on the "Utah expedition" to quell the supposed
rebellion and to replace Brigham
Young as territorial governor with
Alfred Cumming. The
resulting conflict is known as the Utah
War.
As troops
approached Salt Lake in northern Utah, nervous Mormon
settlers and Paiutes attacked and
killed 120 immigrants from Arkansas
in southern Utah. The attack became known as the
Mountain Meadows
Massacre. The massacre became a point of contention
between LDS leaders and the federal government for decades.
Only one man, John D. Lee, was
ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the
massacre site.
Before
troops led by Albert
Sidney Johnston entered the territory, Brigham Young
ordered all residents of Salt Lake City to evacuate
southward to Utah Valley and sent
out a force, known as the Nauvoo
Legion, to delay the government's advance. Although
wagons and supplies were burned, eventually the troops
arrived, and Young surrendered official control to Cumming,
although most subsequent commentators claim that Young
retained true power in the territory. A steady stream of
governors appointed by the president quit the position,
often citing the unresponsiveness of their supposed
territorial government. By agreement with Young, Johnston
established Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to
the southwest.
Salt Lake
City was the last link of the
First
Transcontinental Telegraph, completed in October of
1861. Brigham Young was among the first to send a message,
along with Abraham Lincoln
and other officials.
Because of
the American Civil War,
federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory, leaving
the territory in LDS hands until
Patrick E. Connor
arrived with a regiment of California volunteers in 1862.
Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east
of Salt Lake City and encouraged his men to discover mineral
deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals
were discovered in Tooele
County, and miners began to flock to the territory.
Beginning
in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk
War developed into the deadliest conflict in the
territory's history. Chief
Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to
break out until additional federal troops were sent in to
suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872.
The war is unique among Indian Wars
because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos
Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk
exploited by federal and LDS authorities.
On
May 10, 1869, the
First
Transcontinental Railroad was completed at
Promontory Summit, north of
the Great Salt Lake. The
railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the
state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in
the territory.
During the
1870s and 1880s,
laws were passed to punish polygamists, and in the
1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church
finally agreed to ban polygamy. When Utah applied for
statehood again, it was accepted. One of the conditions for
granting Utah statehood was that a ban on polygamy be
written into the state constitution. This was a condition
required of other western states that were admitted into the
Union later. Statehood was officially granted on
January 4, 1896.
20th century
Beginning
in the early 1900s, with the establishment of such national
parks as Bryce Canyon
National Park and Zion
National Park, Utah began to become known for its
natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot
for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as
Delicate Arch and "the Mittens"
of Monument Valley are
instantly recognizable to most national residents. During
the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, with the construction of the
Interstate highway system,
accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.
Beginning
in 1939, with the establishment of
Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its
skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the
Wasatch Range is considered
some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the
bid for the 2002 Winter
Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost
to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in
popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across
the Wasatch Front continue to
be used for sporting events. This also spurred the
development of the light-rail system in the
Salt Lake Valley, known as
TRAX, and the re-construction of the
freeway system around the city.
During the
late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the
1970s, growth was phenomenal in the
suburbs. Sandy was one of the
fastest-growing cities in the country at that time. Today,
many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern
Davis, southern and
western Salt Lake,
Summit, eastern
Tooele,
Utah,
Wasatch, and
Washington counties
are all growing very quickly.
Transportation and urbanization
are major issues in politics as development consumes
agricultural land and wilderness areas.
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