Founding
capital city of the U.S. state of Utah and seat of Salt Lake County
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Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The population was 199,723 at the 2020 census, while the Salt Lake City metropolitan area has an estimated 1.3 million residents and is the 46th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. It is also part of the larger Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo combined statistical area, an urban corridor along a 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front with a population of approximately 2.8 million. It is one of the principal urban centers within the Great Basin, along with Reno, Nevada.
Salt Lake City was founded in 1847 by settlers led by Brigham Young who were seeking to escape persecution they had experienced while living farther east. The Mormon pioneers, as they would come to be known, entered a semi-arid valley and immediately began building an extensive irrigation network that could feed the population and foster future growth.
The street grid system is based on a standard compass grid plan, with the southeast corner of Temple Square serving as the origin of the Salt Lake meridian. Owing to its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, it was originally named Great Salt Lake City; the word "Great" was dropped from the city's name in 1868. Immigration of international members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), mining booms, and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad brought economic growth, and the city was nicknamed "The Crossroads of the West". It was traversed by the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, in 1913. Two major cross-country freeways, I-15 and I-80, intersect in the city. The city also has a belt route, I-215.
Salt Lake City has developed a strong tourist industry based primarily on skiing, outdoor recreation, and religious tourism. It hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and is set to host the 2034 Winter Olympics. It is known for its politically liberal culture, which stands in contrast with most of the rest of the state's highly conservative leanings. It is home to a significant LGBT community and hosts the annual Utah Pride Festival. It is the industrial banking center of the United States. Salt Lake City and the surrounding area are the location of several institutions of higher education including the state's flagship research school, the University of Utah.
Sustained drought in Utah has strained water security, caused record low water levels in Great Salt Lake, and impacted the local and state economy. The receding lake has exposed arsenic which may become airborne, subjecting area residents to poisonous dust. The city is also under threat of major earthquake damage amplified by two offshoots of the nearby Wasatch Fault that join underneath the downtown area.
Before settlement by members of the LDS Church, the Shoshone, Weber Ute, and Paiute had dwelt in the Salt Lake Valley for thousands of years. At the time of Salt Lake City's founding, the valley was within the territory of the Northwestern Shoshone. At the time of European contact, the Salt Lake Valley was inhabited by several Indigenous groups, including the Northwestern Shoshone and the Western Goshute, a distinct tribe with ancestral territory in the broader region. The Western Goshute had distinct names for key geographic features, including the Jordan River (Pi'o-gwût), City Creek (So'ho-gwût), and Red Butte Canyon (Pi'o-gwût, So'ho-gwût, and Mo'ni-wai-ni). The Goshutes lived in the vicinity of Salt Lake and the valleys to the west. The land was treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title held by the Northwestern Shoshone was ever ceded or relinquished by treaty with the United States.
The first explorer of European descent in the Salt Lake area was likely Jim Bridger in 1825, although others had been in Utah earlier, including some who traveled as far north as the nearby Utah Valley (the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition were undoubtedly aware of Salt Lake Valley's existence). 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, had traveled through the valley in August 1846.
The settling of Salt Lake City dates to the arrival of the Latter-day Saints in July 1847, during the Mexican-American War. They had traveled beyond the boundaries of the United States into Mexican Territory seeking a secluded area to safely practice their religion away from the violence and the persecution they experienced in the United States. Upon arrival at the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is credited with declaring the location suitable for settlement. However, the precise wording of this statement varies across historical accounts, with some sources recording it as "This is the right place, drive on." According to Mormon historical tradition, Young experienced a vision of the Salt Lake Valley prior to the pioneer party's arrival in 1847, though this account appears only in later historical narratives. They found the broad valley empty of any human settlement.
Four days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Young designated the building site for the Salt Lake Temple, which was constructed on the block later called Temple Square and took 40 years to complete. Construction started in 1853, and the temple was dedicated on April 6, 1893. The temple has become an icon for the city and serves as its centerpiece. The southeast corner of Temple Square is the point of reference for the Salt Lake meridian and for all addresses in the Salt Lake Valley.
Following a measles outbreak in 1847 that devastated the local Shoshone population, Shoshone residents taught the pioneers to harvest and prepare sego lily bulbs (Calochortus nuttallii) for food. The sego lily, a staple that the Shoshone had cultivated for generations, became an important nutritional resource during the pioneers' early years in the valley. The word 'sego' derives from the Shoshone term 'seego'. The sego lily was commemorated by the Sego Lily Dam, a flood-prevention infrastructure project in the shape of a giant sego lily, built in Sugar House Park in 2017.
In 1849, Young and other territorial leaders proposed the State of Deseret as a provisional government with an expansive territorial boundary and petitioned Congress for recognition as a state. Congress rejected this petition in 1850, established the Utah Territory in its place with substantially reduced boundaries, and designated Fillmore as its capital city. Great Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital in 1856. In 1855 Congress directed the President of the United States to appoint a surveyor general to servey the lands of Utah Territory. Because of numerous conflicts between the surveyor and the territorial government, the first surveyor general abandoned his post in 1857, not to return till 1869. The city was not platted until after the federal surveyor abandoned his post. The city's population continued to swell with an influx of converts to the LDS Church and gold rush gold seekers, making it one of the most populous cities in the American Old West.
The first group of settlers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves—Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby—came west with the first group of settlers in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. In 1852, the territorial legislature passed the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners formally legalizing slavery in the territory. On June 19, 1862, during the American Civil War, Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.
Explorer, ethnologist, and author Richard Francis Burton traveled by coach in the summer of 1860 to document life in Great Salt Lake City. He was granted unprecedented access during his three-week visit, including audiences with Young and other contemporaries of Joseph Smith. The records of his visit include sketches of early city buildings, a description of local geography and agriculture, commentary on its politics and social order, essays, speeches, and sermons from Young, Isaac Morley, George Washington Bradley and other leaders, and snippets of everyday life such as newspaper clippings and the menu from a high-society ball.
Disputes with the federal government ensued over the church's practice of polygamy. In 1857, tensions escalated when President James Buchanan issued a proclamation removing Young as territorial governor and appointing Alfred Cumming as his replacement. Young refused to recognize Cumming's authority, leading Buchanan to declare the territory in rebellion and dispatching federal troops. This confrontation, known as the Utah War (1857–1858), resulted in a military standoff that threatened the settlement. A division of the United States Army, commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston, marched through the city and found it had been evacuated. They continued their march through the deserted city to vacant land at the southwest corner of the valley. There they set up Camp Floyd (40 miles (64 km) south of the city). Another military installation, Fort Douglas, was established in 1862 to maintain Union allegiance during the Civil War. Many area leaders were incarcerated at the territorial prison in Sugar House in the 1880s for violation of anti-polygamy laws. The church began its eventual abandonment of polygamy in 1890, releasing "the Manifesto", which officially suggests members obey the law of the land (which was equivalent to forbidding new polygamous marriages inside the US and its territories, but not in church member settlements in Canada and Mexico). This paved the way for statehood in 1896, when Salt Lake City became the state capital.
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 at Promontory Summit on the north side of the Great Salt Lake, and a rail line was connected to the city in 1870, making travel less burdensome. Mass migration of different groups followed.
Ethnic Chinese (who had laid most of the Central Pacific railway) established a flourishing Chinatown nicknamed "Plum Alley", which housed around 1,800 Chinese during the early 20th century. The Chinese businesses and residences were demolished in 1952 although a historical marker has been erected near the parking ramp which has replaced Plum Alley. Immigrants found economic opportunities in the booming mining industries. Remnants of a once-thriving Japantown – namely a Buddhist temple and Japanese Christian chapel – remain in downtown Salt Lake City. European ethnic groups and East Coast missionary groups constructed St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in 1874, B'nai Israel Temple in 1890, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Madeleine in 1909 and the Greek Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral in 1923. This time period also saw the creation of a now defunct red-light district that employed 300 courtesans at its height before being closed in 1911.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an extensive streetcar system was constructed throughout the city, with the first streetcar running in 1872 and electrification of the system in 1889. As in the rest of the country, the automobile usurped the streetcar, and the last trolley was approved for conversion in 1941 yet ran until 1945 due to World War II. Trolley buses ran until 1946. Light rail transit returned to the city when UTA's TRAX opened in 1999. The S Line (formerly known as Sugar House Streetcar) opened for service in December 2013 on an old D&RGW right-of-way.
The population began to stagnate during the 20th century as population growth shifted to suburban areas north and south of the city. Few of these areas were annexed, while nearby towns incorporated and expanded. As a result, the population of the surrounding metropolitan area greatly outnumbers Salt Lake City. A major concern of recent government officials has been combating inner-city commercial decay. Population decline from the 1960s through the 1980s but experienced some recovery in the 1990s. Presently, the city has gained an estimated 5 percent of its population since 2000. There have been significant demographic shifts in recent years. Hispanics now account for approximately 22% of residents, and there is a significant LGBT community. There is also a large Pacific Islander population (mainly Samoans and Tongans); they compose roughly 2% of the population of the Salt Lake Valley area.
Salt Lake City was selected in 1995 to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. The games were plagued with controversy. A bid scandal surfaced in 1998 alleging bribes had been offered to secure the bid. During the games, other scandals erupted over contested judging scores and illegal drug use. While the 2002 Games generated significant financial returns for Olympic operations and prompted major infrastructure investments, the anticipated substantial increase in permanent business development and sustained tourism growth did not materialize immediately in the post-Games period. However, downtown revitalization accelerated in the following decade, particularly with the 2010 opening of City Creek Center and continued transit expansion. In preparation major construction projects were initiated. Local freeways were expanded and repaired, and a light rail system was constructed. Olympic venues are now used for local, national, and international sporting events and Olympic athlete training. However, the predicted increase in businesses did not happen following the games.
Salt Lake City hosted the 16th Winter Deaflympic games in 2007, taking place in the venues in Salt Lake City and Park City, and Rotary International chose the city as the host site of their 2007 convention, which was the single largest gathering in Salt Lake City since the 2002 Winter Olympics. The U.S. Volleyball Association convention in 2005 drew 39,500 attendees. Salt Lake City has been selected to host the 2034 Winter Olympics. All of the facilities from the previous Games can be re-used.
In 2020, the region experienced a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, protests against the killing of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, and a damaging windstorm with hurricane-force winds, amid the wider national George Floyd protests, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and protests against pandemic measures.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Salt Lake City”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.