Did you mean: Utah (state, United States), Utah Phillips (Folk Artist), Utah Utes (NCAA Team), Utah! (Rock Band), Utah (1945 Western Film), UTAH (abbreviation) More...
|
Results for Utah
|
On this page:
|
A state of the western United States. It was admitted as the 45th state in 1896. First explored by the Spanish in 1540, the region was settled in 1847 by Mormons led by Brigham Young. Salt Lake City is the capital and the largest city. Population: 2,550,000.
Utahan U'tah·an or U'tahn adj. & n.
For more information on Utah, visit Britannica.com.
In a nation without an established church, Utah represents the closest thing to a theocracy that the United States has ever seen. With a land area of 82,168 square miles and despite a swelling urban population in the late twentieth century, Utah remains one of the least densely populated states in the United States with 27.2 persons per square mile. Physically, the Wasatch Mountains divide the state of Utah into the Central Rocky Mountain Province, the Colorado Plateau Province, and the Great Basin, where the greatest concentration of hot springs in the United States is to be found. Elevation varies from a high of 13,258 feet to a low of 2,350 feet and there is considerable climatic variation, with the highest rainfall in the mountains. The 2000 Census reported 2,233,169 residents, 89.2 percent of whom were white and only 0.8 percent black, with 9.0 percent of Hispanic origin.
More than two-thirds of Utah's residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
From Native Americans to Latter-Day Saints
Utah's earliest inhabitants, the Anasazi, occupied southern Utah, living in permanent villages and using flood-plain agriculture. Around A.D. 1100, the Numic Indians settled the Great Basin with more efficient harvesting technology, an organization that was familial, and with weak tribal structures. Although Utah lay on the borders of the Spanish Empire, trade developed with Spanish communities in present-day New Mexico and further south. It was not until the 1820s, however, that American and British fur trappers entered the region, erecting a number of forts that were later to provide assistance to migrants crossing to California. Increasing acquaintance with the Utah region drew the attention of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, seeking land in the remote West after the murder in 1844 of its leader, Joseph Smith. In February 1846 the Mormons left Illinois, led by their president, Brigham Young. The members of an advance party reached the Salt Lake Valley on 22 July 1847, where they found fertile soils and an adequate growing season at the crossroads of the overland route to California. By 1860, forty thousand Euro-Americans resided in Utah. The church used a lottery to assign town lots and distributed land and water rights systematically, with water held on the principle of cooperative ownership. Although more sympathetic to the Numic Indians than other Euro-Americans, the Mormons still sought to acquire their lands and interfered in the Ute trade in slaves, leading to the Walker War of 1853.
The First Years of Settlement
Negotiations in 1849 to create a state proved abortive and instead Utah Territory was established. Conflict arose in 1857, after the territory had accorded local probate courts original jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases to avoid federally administered justice. That year President James Buchanan sent out the army to remove Brigham Young as governor of the territory. After a standoff in which the Mormons destroyed Forts Bridger and Supply, fortified Echo Canyon, and sought to deny the invaders access to grass and livestock that they would need, a compromise was reached whereby the federal government offered an amnesty in return for submission, although federal troops remained until 1861. The Mormon state continued to grow, with twenty thousand new immigrants arriving between 1859 and 1868. They spread out into the higher valleys and created settlements to mine minerals and grow cotton and flax. During the Civil War they remained loyal to the Union, despite passage of the Morrill Anti-bigamy Act (1862), which targeted the practice of polygamy in the territory. In 1868, the church established Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution to serve as wholesaler and distributor for a network of cooperative enterprises in Mormon communities. At Brigham Young's behest, an attempt was also made to foster a more comprehensive cooperative system—the United Order—but it ultimately failed.
Economic Development
During the 1860s, the first commercial mining of silver took place at Bingham Canyon. The full potential of mining was only realized, however, with the completion of a trans-state rail link in 1869. The new mines that resulted benefited from new technologies, outside investment, and the cooperation of the Mormon communities, many of which were involved in selling agricultural produce to the mining districts. Although not initially working as miners, Mormons were increasingly encouraged by the church to do so, provided they continued to work their farms. Despite the fact that mine work was dangerous, most Mormon miners refused to join unions and were regarded unfavorably by their non-Mormon neighbors. By 1880, Utah Territory had become dependent on coal mining, while wheat, sugar beets, and growing numbers of sheep and cattle gave a boost to commercial agriculture. The LDS Church created Zion's Central Board of Trade to plan home industry and provide a market for goods; the board also worked with non-Mormon businesses. By 1890, 36 percent of Utah Territory's residents lived in cities, a greater proportion than in the rest of the nation, although water supply and sewerage systems remained of low quality. Culturally, too, Utah attracted attention, with the formation of the Salt Lake Art Association in 1881 (later to become the Utah Art Association) and the new prominence accorded the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after its appearance at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The War Against Polygamy
Such progress, however, was hampered by the federal prosecution of the practice of polygamy by members of the LDS Church. The territory's chief justice, James McKean, worked to exclude Mormons from jury service and brought charges of immorality against Mormon leaders. Although around three-quarters of Mormon families were monogamous, polygamy was often regarded as the basis for holding high office in the church. In 1882, the Edmunds Act provided sanctions for unlawful cohabitation and allowed exclusion of jurors who supported polygamy. Over one thousand Mormons were imprisoned during the 1880s for violating the act, but the Mormon-dominated People's Party retained control of the legislature. The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 targeted the LDS Church by providing for the confiscation of all church property above fifty thousand dollars. During the 1880s, moreover, the gentile population of Utah Territory rose considerably and the anti-Mormon Liberal Party gained control of the cities of Ogden and Salt Lake City. The threatened confiscation of church property led LDS president Wilford Woodruff to issue the Manifesto of 1890, which revoked the practice of polygamy. The church also had some of its prominent figures join the Republican Party in order to avoid a political schism on religious lines since, prior to statehood, most Mormons had belonged to the national Democratic Party, which was more sympathetic to their call for states' rights. In preparation for statehood in 1896, Utah drafted a constitution that enshrined religious freedom and prohibited polygamy. At the same time, church property and civil rights were restored to the Latter-day Saints.
Commercial Agriculture and Mining
Before 1896 the farm frontier was concentrated on the irrigated and urbanized Wasatch Front and Sanpete Valley. Afterward, it shifted to more rural areas, aided by dry farming, made possible by hoarding moisture from winter rain; this helped increase farm size. Dairy farming came to northern Utah around 1900 and horticulture to the central Utah Valley in the early twentieth century. Attitudes toward water rights became less communitarian, allowing owners to buy and sell them, but in 1898 the state supreme court ruled that water could not be appropriated except for a beneficial purpose. Damage to grazing land led to the setting aside of forest reserves in 1897 and 1902 to protect watersheds and timberlands, a move supported by the LDS Church and Senator Reed Smoot. Mining production also expanded dramatically, rising from a return of $10.4 million in 1896 to $99.3 million in 1917. The exploitation of low-grade copper was a key factor here, and the world's largest copper smelter was installed at Garfield in 1906. The mines attracted Italian and Greek immigrants who were not Mormons and had their own network of ethnic associations and churches. They formed the basis for new industrial unions like the Western Federation of Miners, which established its headquarters in Salt Lake City for a time during the late 1890s. In strikes by the United Mine Workers against the Utah Fuel Company in 1903–1904 and by the Western Federation of Miners against the Utah Copper Company in 1912 the unions were decisively beaten.
The Progressive Era
Republicans exploited the rising tide of national prosperity at the turn of the century to achieve political dominance. In 1903, LDS apostle Reed Smoot gained a U.S. Senate seat and built a political machine in Utah known as the Federal Bunch. Only in 1916 did Progressives succeed in electing its first Democratic governor, Simon Bamberger, and a new legislature that enacted statewide prohibition, established public utility and industrial commissions, and allowed peaceful picketing. The Progressive impulse extended to Salt Lake City, where the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs was active in social reform. A Civic Improvement League was created in 1906, bringing together a variety of interest groups of different religious and political backgrounds that called for better paving and more parks. A comprehensive planning system for the city was conceived in 1917 and carried through in the 1920s. One aspect of this effort at urban improvement was the fight against air pollution, led by businessman and state legislator George Dern, who sponsored a bill in 1915 to set up a cooperative research program to investigate the smelter smoke problem from the burning of soft coal.
During World War I, the LDS Church and its affiliates were active in Liberty Bond work and offered Americanization classes for new immigrants, while Utah provided 20,872 recruits for the armed services of whom 447 were killed. With the coming of the 1920s, the state turned back to the Republican Party, but in 1924 Democrat George Dern was elected governor thanks to Republican intraparty strife. Although the legislature remained under Republican control, it signed on to the federal Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act of 1923 that provided matching health-care grants for infants and their mothers. The state also participated in negotiations that led to the Colorado River Compact, designed to ensure reasonable use of the river's water by states through which it flowed.
The Great Depression
Mining and agricultural activity remained at a comparatively low level during the 1920s. After 1920, Utah's mining and agricultural sectors failed to sustain the levels enjoyed during the first two decades of the twentieth century. When the Great Depression struck the Utah economy it completely collapsed. Per capita income stood at only $300 in 1933, farm income fell from $69 million in 1929 to $30 million in 1932, and unemployment reached 36 percent in 1932–1933. Governor Dern called for an increase in the money supply and short-term federal aid for the unemployed. Relief was initially handled by county governments and private charity, of which the LDS Church was an important source, and in 1931 Dern appointed Sylvester Cannon of the LDS Church to chair the State Advisory Council on Unemployment. Victorious in 1932, the new Democratic governor, Henry Blood, called for a reasonable minimum wage, old age insurance, unemployment relief, and a state anti-injunction law to protect the rights of organized labor. Blood quickly turned to the federal government for assistance, seeking $57 million in building, sewage, and reclamation work from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration. A new burst of unionization took place in Carbon County, where the United Mine Workers achieved recognition in most mines. The Democratic Party was dominant in Utah throughout the 1930s, with state senator Herbert Maw as the party's radical champion. In 1936, Utahns voted 63.9 percent for President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, despite an LDS Church decision to publish a front-page editorial in the Church-operated Deseret News that some interpreted as a tacit endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Alfred Landon. Unhappy with the extensive federal intervention of the Roosevelt administration, the church in 1936 adopted its own welfare plan in an effort to divorce the Saints from secular government by providing them with church-sponsored work.
World War II and the Transformation of Utah
A great transformation of Utah came with World War II. In the mid-1930s, it was decided to upgrade Ogden Arsenal and build Hill Air Force Base to provide storage and training facilities for the military. This vastly expanded federal presence fueled dramatic in-migration as civilian defense jobs increased from 800 in 1940 to 28,800 in 1945. The government also built the Geneva Steel Plant near Provo for $214 million, although it was operated under private contract. Governor Herbert Maw proved particularly effective in lobbying the president for locating military sites in Utah. An activist for his state, he created the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development in 1941 to plan for the postwar economic world. The new demand for labor also led to an increased hiring of women workers, who constituted 37 percent of the labor force by 1944. Some 71,000 Utahns served in the armed forces and 3,600 were killed. By 1943, 52,000 people were working in defense installations and pressure for new housing was high, while food and clothing costs grew dramatically.
The Postwar Economy
Defense employment declined in the late 1940s but revived during the Korean War, when Hill Air Force Base was assigned responsibility for storing and repairing jets. Nuclear weapons were stored and tested in Utah and Nevada; atomic tests from 1951 to 1958 at the Nevada Test Site released radiation that affected residents of southwestern Utah. The new demand for uranium fueled Utah's economy and Moab, located near uranium ore deposits, became a boomtown in the mid-1950s. The new prosperity led to a conservative shift in politics, with Republicans making striking gains in 1946 and 1948. The Republican Party in Utah was racked by dissension, however, after Senator Arthur Watkins, one of its own, chaired the committee investigating censure of Joseph McCarthy. The resulting split between moderates and conservatives in Utah helped Democrat Frank Moss to defeat Watkins in 1958. In the same period, the appointment of Hugh Brown to the First Presidency in 1961 placed a liberal Democrat in an influential advisory position to the president of the LDS Church, while in secular politics democrat Calvin Rampton served as governor from 1965 to 1977.
The Minority Question
Minorities in Utah faced challenges in the 1950s and 1960s. The redistribution of tribal lands to the Paiute Indians by the federal government did not begin to compensate for their loss of access to federal health insurance, education, and employment programs, and many were forced to sell their new land because it generated so little income. The position of African Americans improved in the late 1940s, when many businesses and swimming pools were integrated, and again in the mid-1960s when Utah, along with the federal government, began to pass civil rights legislation. The LDS Church found itself obliged to reflect on its own ban, dating from the nineteenth century, against black males holding priestly office, and in 1978 President Spencer Kimball received a revelation that permitted African Americans to enter the priesthood.
Modern Utah
Since 1970 Utah has become a Republican stronghold, voting 54 percent to 33 percent for Bob Dole over Bill Clinton in 1996 and 67 percent to 26 percent for George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000. Democrats have not won a majority in the legislature since the 1974 election and have not held the governorship since 1985. A part of the reason for this shift has been the negative reaction to federal ownership of public lands. President Clinton's creation of the 1.7-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument helped defeat conservative Democratic U.S. representative Bill Orton that year. Even former Democratic governor Scott Matheson argued that the federal government had encroached too far on the rights of the states.
A new post-industrial economy in Utah has arisen, in which sixteen of the twenty-four largest employers are neither military nor absentee. The electronics industry includes Word Perfect, Novell, and Unisys, while manufacturing has shifted to electronic and aerospace components. Delta Airlines has made Salt Lake City a national hub, opening the Wasatch Front to business and tourism. During the 1990s, the state's population grew by 29.6 percent. Utah had a high school graduation rate of 82.1 percent in 1989 and was fifth in the nation in SAT scores in 1994. The state boasted good public health indicators and low rates of cancer. Cultural institutions include the Utah Symphony, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Ballet West, the Brigham Young University Folk Dance Ensemble, and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.
Bibliography
Alexander, Thomas G. Utah, the Right Place: The Official Centennial History. Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1995.
Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958.
———, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May. Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1976.
Hundley, Norris, Jr. Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
Logue, Larry M. A Sermon in the Desert: Beliefand Behavior in Early St. George, Utah. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
May, Dean L. Utah: A People's History. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.
———. Three Frontiers: Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850–1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Papanikolas, Helen Z., ed. The Peoples of Utah. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976.
Powell, Allan Kent. The Next Time We Strike: Labor in Utah's Coal Fields, 1900–1933. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1985.
Stegner, Wallace. Mormon Country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. Originally published in 1942.
Facts and Figures
Area, 84,916 sq mi (219,932 sq km), including 2,577 sq mi (6,674 sq km) of inland water surface. Pop. (2000) 2,233,169, a 29.6% increase since the 1990 census. Capital and largest city, Salt Lake City. Statehood, Jan. 4, 1896 (45th state). Highest pt., Kings Peak, 13,528 ft (4,126 m); lowest pt., Beaverdam Creek, 2,000 ft (610 m). Nickname, Beehive State. Motto, Industry. State bird, seagull. State flower, sego lily. State tree, blue spruce. Abbr., UT
Geography
Utah has two dissimilar regions sharply divided by the Wasatch Range (part of the Rocky Mts.), which runs generally south from the Idaho border. To the east of the Wasatch rise high mountains and irregular plateaus; along its western foothills lie the major cities of Utah, while farther west is the Great Basin. In the northeast the snowcapped Uinta Mts. reach the state's highest elevation in Kings Peak (13,528 ft/4,123 m). The dissected Colorado Plateau stretches southward, rugged and largely uninhabitable except in isolated river valleys. Deep, tortuous canyons cut by the Colorado River and its tributaries impede travel but create vistas of remarkable grandeur.
Western Utah, part of the Great Basin, was once submerged beneath an extensive Pleistocene lake, Lake Bonneville. For many thousands of years the water level in the lake fluctuated, finally subsiding entirely to leave behind a salt-strewn desert, wide expanses of arid but nonalkaline soil, and a series of lakes. Great Salt Lake, the largest of these, has through evaporation reached a concentration of mineral salts several times that of the ocean. Gulls, pelicans, and blue herons are found around the lake and on its islands. Much of the lake shore is bordered by mud and salt flats. The haze-covered Oquirrh Mts., rising south of the lake, dip to form pleasant beaches at the water's edge, then emerge as islands within the lake and rise again in the Promontory Mts. on the northern shore.
Utah Lake, to the south, is the largest natural body of freshwater in the state and drains into Great Salt Lake through the Jordan River. Between Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Range and curving southwest toward the Arizona line is the river-crossed Wasatch Front, an agricultural strip that is the center of the life of Utah. Major cities are situated on terraces left by Lake Bonneville.
Irrigation of the rich but arid land has long been crucial to Utah's agricultural development. Major reclamation projects, such as the Weber River, Weber River Basin, Moon Lake, and Strawberry Valley projects, assist numerous private enterprises in storing water for distribution and in aiding flood control. The Central Utah project carries water from streams in the Uinta Mts. through a vast complex of dams, reservoirs, tunnels, canals, and aqueducts across the Wasatch Range to the Salt Lake valley. Lake Powell, the reservoir of Glen Canyon Dam just beyond the Arizona line, and Flaming Gorge Dam are important parts of the Colorado River storage project in Utah.
The state's unusual geologic history has produced many natural wonders, most notably Great Salt Lake and the spectacular Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks. Other attractions are Canyonlands and Arches, national parks; Cedar Breaks, Dinosaur, Grand Staircase–Escalante, Hovenweep, Natural Bridges, Rainbow Bridge, and Timpanogos Cave national monuments; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area; and Golden Spike National Historic Site (see National Parks and Monuments, table). The Bonneville Salt Flats are famous as an automotive speedway. There are many national forests and a number of Native American reservations. Capitol Reef National Park contains ancient cliff dwellings (see cliff dwellers), glyphs, and other prehistoric artifacts.
Salt Lake City is the capital and largest city; it is also the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), which founded the state and to a large extent still dominates it. Other important cities are Ogden and Provo.
Economy
Cultivated land, including isolated farms in river valleys and considerable dry-farming acreage, is limited to a small percentage of the state's total area. Major crops are hay, corn, barley, and wheat, but the bulk of income from agriculture comes from livestock and livestock products, including sheep, cattle, dairying, and an expanding poultry industry. Abundant sunshine provides some compensation for inadequate rainfall, and the climate is generally moderate, allowing for substantial fruit production. Agrarian life was well suited to the principles of the Mormon settlers; moreover, they hoped that the difficulties of successfully farming the dry land would discourage non-Mormons from settling in the area.
The development of nonagricultural resources was more or less frowned upon by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and, in general, was initiated by non-Mormons. However, a wealth of minerals made mineral exploitation almost inevitable and, in turn, stimulated the construction of railroads. Today many residents are engaged in mining or mining-related industries. Copper is the chief metal, followed by gold, molybdenum, and magnesium. Other important mineral products include beryllium, asphalt, silver, lead, tin, fluorspar, mercury, vanadium, potassium salts, manganiferous ore, and uranium.
For many years high freight rates and the long distances to major markets, together with a Mormon distrust of industrialization, tended to discourage manufacturing. However, the establishment of defense plants and military installations during World War II spurred phenomenal industrial growth. The proximity of high-grade iron, coal, and limestone made Provo a steel center. Industrial plants extend from Provo to Brigham City, with the largest concentration in the Salt Lake City area. Utah is now a center for aerospace research and the production of missiles, spacecraft, computer hardware and software, electronic systems, and related items. Other major manufactures are processed foods, machinery, fabricated metals, and petroleum products.
Tourism has become increasingly important to the state's economy. In addition to the five national parks and seven national monuments, ski resorts, particularly in the Wasatch Range, are popular destinations. Since 1984, Park City has hosted the annual Sundance Film Festival.
Government and Higher Education
Utah still operates under its first constitution, adopted in 1895 and effective with statehood in 1896. The executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. Utah's legislature has a senate with 29 members and a house of representatives with 75 members. The state sends 2 senators and 3 representatives to the U.S. Congress and has 5 electoral votes. Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican elected governor in 1992, was reelected in 1996 and 2000. Leavitt resigned in 2003 to head the Environmental Protection Agency and was succeeded by Lt. Gov. Olene S. Walker, also a Republican, who became Utah's first woman governor. Republican Jon Huntsman was elected to the office in 2004. State politics are solidly Republican.
Utah's leading institutions of higher learning include Brigham Young Univ., at Provo; Southern Utah Univ., at Cedar City; the Univ. of Utah, at Salt Lake City; Utah State Univ., at Logan; and Weber State Univ., at Ogden.
History
Spanish Exploration and Possession
Recent anthropological studies have produced evidence that the Utah area was inhabited as early as c.9,000 B.C. Although some of Coronado's men under García López de Cárdenas may have entered S Utah in 1540, the first definite penetration by Europeans did not occur until 1776, when the Spanish missionaries Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez opened the route for the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and Utah Lake. By the Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, the large area of which Utah was a part was officially recognized as a Spanish possession (it passed to the United States in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican War).
Mountain Men and Wagon Trains
In the 1820s the mountain men, in search of rich beaver streams, made their way over the difficult terrain, thoroughly exploring the region. The discovery of Great Salt Lake is generally credited to James Bridger, but Étienne Provot, Jedediah S. Smith, and others also have claims. The Canadian fur trader Peter Skene Ogden led four expeditions into the Snake River area; he and his explorations are commemorated in the name of one of Utah's leading cities. Between 1824 and 1830 the riches in furs were exhausted, and a decade was to pass before the arrival of the next transients—westward-bound emigrants.
In 1841 the first California-bound group of emigrants, usually called the Bidwell party, left the Oregon Trail and made its way across the Great Salt Lake Desert. Several years later Miles Goodyear became Utah's first settler when he set up a trading post at the site of present-day Ogden, naming it Fort Buenaventura. The ill-fated Donner Party broke trail over the difficult mountains E of Great Salt Lake in 1846 and proceeded in their tragic journey westward across the desert.
Mormon Settlement and Territorial Status
Permanent settlement began in 1847 with the arrival of the first of the hosts of persecuted Mormons, seeking a “gathering place for Israel” in some undesired and isolated spot. It is said that when Brigham Young, their leader, surmounted the Wasatch Range and looked out over the green Great Salt Lake valley, he knew that the place had been found. On July 24, 1847, now celebrated as Pioneer Day, he entered the valley. Young was to prove himself one of the greatest administrators and leaders in 19th-century America. Under his direction and in communal fashion the ground was plowed and planted, the Temple foundation was laid, and Salt Lake City was platted directly on compass lines.
Gradually the Latter-Day Saints assembled, their ranks swelled by streams of emigrants from the United States and abroad (particularly Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries). More and more of the arid land yielded to their pioneering irrigation. In the next 50 years they not only had to learn the techniques of wresting a living from the desert, of combating frequent invasions of grasshoppers, and confronting the Native Americans, but they also had to face opposition from the federal government. In 1850 a large area, of which the present state was a part, was constituted Utah Territory and Young was appointed governor. The name Deseret [honeybee], chosen by the Mormons, was discarded, but the beehive remains a ubiquitous symbol of Mormon activity throughout Utah.
Friction with Native Americans and the U.S. Government
The Native Americans, dispossessed of their lands and foreseeing further encroachment, became embittered, and the Mormons were threatened by the powerful Ute. The confrontation eventually lead to the Walker War (1853–54) and the Black Hawk War (1865–68). There were also conflicts between the Mormons and the California-bound immigrants, but the real trouble came with the gradual disintegration of relations between the Mormons and the federal government. Numerous petitions for statehood were denied because of the practice of polygamy, publicly avowed by the Mormons in 1852. Friction was increased by the assigning of non-Mormon and often incompetent federal judges to Utah, and clashes between church and federal interpretation of the law became frequent. Stories of Mormon violence toward non-Mormon settlers circulated in the East, and antagonism, much of it based on misunderstanding, grew out of proportion.
In 1857 a “state of substantial rebellion” was declared by the federal government; Young was removed from his post, and President James Buchanan directed U.S. army troops to proceed against the Mormons. The Mormons prepared for warfare, calling in outlying settlers, and guerrilla bands harassed the westward-bound troop supply trains of Albert S. Johnston. The affair, known as the “Utah War” or the “Mormon campaign,” was finally settled peacefully, but great ill feeling had developed, particularly after the massacre at Mountain Meadows. Some settlers who during the disturbances had traveled to land south of the Utah Valley remained to spread colonization there.
This turbulent episode was followed by several difficult decades. Congress passed acts forbidding polygamy in 1862, 1882, and 1887. In the attempt to enforce them, civil liberties were infringed upon and some Mormon church properties were expropriated. In 1890 a church edict advising members to abstain from the practice of polygamy was ratified, and civil rights and church properties were restored.
Statehood and the End of Isolation
Long before Utah became a state in 1896, its area had been reduced to its present size by the creation of the Nevada and Colorado territories in 1861 and the Wyoming Territory in 1868. The influx of settlers included many non-Mormon groups, and cultural and economic isolation was largely ended by the development of mining as well as by the completion of the Union Pacific RR, which in 1869 joined the Central Pacific RR northwest of Ogden, completing the nation's first transcontinental railroad.
Twentieth-Century Developments
Agriculture was long hampered by an 1880 court ruling favoring a concept of water as private property. Not until the Reclamation Act of 1902 was the principle of water as public property restored, reinforced by state legislation in 1903 vesting ownership of water in the state. World War II spurred industrial growth, and the development of hydroelectric power during the 1950s attracted new industries. The federal government, which owns over 60% of Utah's land, has become one of the state's largest employers, at both military and civilian facilities. Computer-software and other high-technology firms have recently given the state a diversified and robust economy.
Bibliography
See D. W. Meinig, “The Mormon Culture Region: Strategies and Patterns in the Geography of the American West, 1847–1964” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers (vol. 55, 1965); L. J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints (1966); W. D. Stout, History of Utah (3 vol., 1967–71); F. J. Buttle, Utah Grows (1970); R. J. Dwyer, The Gentile Comes to Utah (1971); R. V. Francaviglia, The Mormon Landscape (1979); W. Wahlquist et al., Atlas of Utah (1981); J. V. Young, State Parks of Utah: A Guide and History (1989).
State in the western United States bordered by Idaho and Wyoming to the north, Colorado to the east, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. Its capital and largest city is Salt Lake City.
Local Time: May 16, 1:17 PM
 |
 |
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. |
| State of Utah | |||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Official language(s) | English | ||||||||||
| Capital | Salt Lake City | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Salt Lake City | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 13th | ||||||||||
| - Total | 84,889 sq mi (219,887 km²) |
||||||||||
| - Width | 270 miles (435 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 350 miles (565 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 3.25 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 37° N to 42° N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 109° 3′ W to 114° 3′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 34th | ||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 2,233,169 | ||||||||||
| - Density | 27.2/sq mi 10.50/km² (41st) |
||||||||||
| - Median income | $50,614 (11th) | ||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | Kings Peak[1] 13,528 ft (4,126 m) |
||||||||||
| - Mean | 6,100 ft (1,860 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Beaver Dam Wash[2] 2,178 ft (664 m) |
||||||||||
| Admission to Union | January 4, 1896 (45th) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Jon Huntsman, Jr. (R) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Orrin Hatch (R) Bob Bennett (R) |
||||||||||
| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||
| Time zone | Mountain: UTC-7/-6 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | UT US-UT | ||||||||||
| Web site | www.utah.gov | ||||||||||
Utah (IPA: /ˈjutɑː/) is a U.S. state located in the western United States. It was the 43th state admitted to the union, on January 4 1896. Approximately 88 percent of Utah's 2,500,000 people, known as "Utahns," live in an urban concentration with Salt Lake City as the center, known as the Wasatch Front. In contrast, vast expanses of the state are nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S.[3] The name "Utah" is derived from the Ute Indian language, meaning "people of the mountains".[4] Utah is known for its geological diversity ranging from snowcapped mountains to well-watered river valleys to rugged, stony deserts. It is also known for being one of the most religiously homogeneous states in the Union, with approximately 62 percent[5] of its inhabitants claiming membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.
The state is a center of transportation, information technology and research, government services and mining as well as a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation. St. George, Utah was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000-2005[6] with Utah being the sixth fastest growing state overall in 2006.[7]
| Living Symbols | |
| -Animal | Rocky Mountain Elk |
| -Bird | California Gull |
| -Butterfly | |
| -Fish | Bonneville Cutthroat Trout |
| -Flower | Sego Lily |
| -Furbearer | |
| -Grass | Indian ricegrass |
| -Insect | European Honey Bee |
| -Reptile | |
| -Tree | Blue Spruce |
| -Wildflower | |
| Beverage | |
| Capital | Salt Lake City |
| Colors | |
| Dance | Square Dance |
| Fossil | Allosaurus |
| Gemstone | Topaz |
| Mineral | Copper |
| Motto | "Industry" |
| Musical Instrument | |
| Neckwear | |
| Nickname | "Beehive State" |
| Rock | Coal |
| Game | Chess |
| Ship(s) | USS Utah (BB-31) |
| Song | Utah, This is the Place |
| Soil | Mivida |
| Tartan | Utah State Tartan |
| Waltz | |
