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Originally, the Salt Lake Valley was inhabited by the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute and UteNative 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.[1] 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".[2][3] 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.[4] 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 (Provo), 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.[5] The Donner Party, a group of ill-fated pioneers, traveled through the Great Salt Lake Valley a year before the Mormon pioneers. This group had spent weeks traversing difficult terrain and brush, cutting a road through the Wasatch Mountains, coming through Emigration canyon into the Salt Lake Valley on August 12, 1846. This same path would be used by the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers, and for many years after that by those following them to Salt Lake.[6]
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Salt Lake City: A Downtown Story
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The History of Salt Lake City - Fisher Mansion
Transcription
[Chimes]
>>Train Announcement: “Next station: City
Center”
[Music]
>>Male Narrator: Twenty acres. Two blocks.
165 years. On maps, they are known simply
as
Block 75 and 76, but to those who have worked,
lived and played here, Block 75 and 76
are a world unto themselves, defined and redefined
by the forces of economics and society,
built up, torn down, and built again.
>>Stephen Goldsmith: The evolution of those
two blocks of downtown is really quite a
fascinating case-study of the way cities change
over time. If you go to Rome and you look
at the history of a block, where there may
not be as many changes over 500 years, or
over 800
years, to see so many changes over our blocks
over 150 years really is uncanny.
>>Male Narrator: Over the years, Blocks 75
and 76 have been home to people, businesses,
entertainment, and the steady flow of a city
in motion. In a sense, these blocks have defined
the life and times of the city. The story
of the heart of Salt Lake City is a story
of vision,
dreams, failure and renewal.
>>Female Voice: Programming support for “Salt
Lake City: A Downtown Story” was made possible
by the members of KUED, in partnership with
Zions Bank: bringing value and vibrancy to
our
communities through support of quality local
productions; and the Larry S. and Allyson
Smith
Challenge Fund: encouraging individuals and
businesses throughout Utah to support KUED
Community
Affairs Programming.
>>Male Narrator: On July 28, 1847, Brigham
Young looked over the semi-arid landscape
and publicly
proclaimed that a temple would be built where
he stood. Soon, an entire city was laid out,
all
radiating from the Temple block. Just across
the street, two perfectly square ten-acre
blocks
were given numbers 75 and 76 on the first
plat of Great Salt Lake City.
In the beginning, it was a self-sufficient
agrarian community, with virtually no commercial
establishments. Blocks were sub-divided into
smaller lots that featured small homes with
garden
plots and fruit trees. A communally cultivated
field was fenced off just south of town. Farmers
lived in the city and rode to the field to
do their work.
The city government and the church government
were one in the same. The Council House, finished
in 1851, embodied this public/private partnership.
Located on the northeast corner of the Block
76,
the two-story building served not just as
an assembly hall for city government, but
as offices for
the Deseret News, a library, city and county
courts, the territorial legislature, church
offices,
and a practice hall for the Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. But its prestigious life was short-lived.
Just
32 years later, a nearby stockpile of gun
powder ignited in a spectacular explosion,
taking the Council
House and several adjacent buildings in the
fire that ensued. Next door, the shop of local
photographer
Charles Roscoe Savage was decimated and many
of his glimpses into the pioneer era were
lost forever.
As the blocks began to take on a more commercial
flavor during the first 20 years of Mormon
settlement,
privately-owned ‘big business’ still did
not exist, but looming on the horizon, change
was steaming west.
Music]
Pony Express riders bearing information from
the outside were soon replaced by the electric
highway
- a simple but blazing-fast means of communication
called the telegraph. The Transcontinental
Telegraph
line first came to life on October 24, 1861,
at 61 South East Temple Street. Eight years
later, on
May 10, 1869, a golden spike was driven at
Promontory Summit, Utah, and the nation was
linked in way that
would change it forever.
The quiet agrarian landscape on Blocks 75
and 76 quickly began giving way to a business
district, powered
by an influx of new arrivals and directed
by the insatiable appetite of capitalism.
>>Randy Dixon: There was no plan for a commercial
district. In 1850, the Church built a storehouse
that
they rented or leased to Livingston and Kinkead,
who was a firm from St. Louis, and later that
same year
a couple other merchants set up stores further
south, and so quite soon East Temple Street,
which was
its original name, became called Main Street.
>>Male Narrator: Brigham Young, hoping to
shield the Church from the oncoming economic
competition,
encouraged it’s business establishments
to join together into what was known as ‘Zions
Co-Operative
Mercantile Institution.’ More than 30 small
shops banded together under one roof, forming
an early department
store and a formidable player in the now-bustling
commercial district on Main Street. For frontier
residents,
shopping at ZCMI was unlike anything they’d
done before. Called ‘The People’s Store,’
they’d pass through
the now-famous iron facade on Main Street
and were greeted by thousands of items, from
boots, clothing, wagons,
sewing machines, lumber, furniture, textiles,
and beauty products. In one year, the in-house
shoe factory,
dubbed the Big Boot, manufactured over 83,000
pairs of shoes and boots.
>>Randy Dixon: It was very successful. Within
five years, they’d added a large addition
to the south. It was
very popular and was really the dominant store
in Utah for generations.
>>Male Narrator: By the late 1880’s, the
city’s population had more than doubled
and a building boom was
under way. The McCornick Block on 74 South
Main Street was one of Salt Lake City’s
first major office buildings.
It reached the dizzying height of seven stories.
Streets and sidewalks were paved for the first
time, ditches
covered, and other multistory brick and stone
buildings sprang up, replacing much of the
original frame and adobe
structures. Soon, only one pioneer structure
would be left to remind people of the past,
and even that building
would not last.
Completed in 1872 by designers William Folsom
and Joseph Ridges, the Victorian mansion located
on the corner of
State Street and South Temple, was formally
known as the ‘Gardo House.’ It was to
be an official residence of Brigham
Young, but was not completed before his death.
By 1901, the Church had sold the residence
to Colonel Edwin F. Holmes.
Colonel Holmes’ wife, Susanna Bransford
Emery Holmes, had made her fortune from investments
in the silver mines of
Park City. Called the ‘Silver Queen,’
she received the Gardo House as a birthday
present from her husband, spending
thousands on remodeling and decorating the
home with treasures acquired from their world
travels. The Holmes’ began
inviting predominantly non-Mormon social elite
to call when they were in town, sometimes
bringing in over 300 guests
per week. No other homes on Block 75 and 76,
before or after, could compare to the grandeur
of the Gardo House. Its
elegant appointments, stately guests and tenants,
and the thousands who passed through its front
door gave it a
singular legacy.
Though a building boom in 1880’s brought
an increasing cosmopolitan flavor to the area,
an earlier structure on Block
75 had been going strong for 20 years already.
The Salt Lake Theatre, completed in 1862,
was a well-known stop for the
era’s best-known entertainers and actors
as they crossed the continent. Long championed
by Brigham Young as an
appropriate outlet for the church, music,
dancing and play-acting had continued uninterrupted
from the church’s previous
city of Zion in Nauvoo, Illinois. As a result,
a well-practiced tradition led many visitors
to remark on the high
quality offerings from the pioneer era theatre.
So important was recreational outlet, the
theatre was completed even
before the famous Tabernacle on Temple Square.
“The people must have amusement,” said
Brigham Young, “as well as religion.”
>>Female Voice: “The season has begun at
Brigham‘s great theatre, which is open two
or three nights of every week. With
two exceptions, the company are all amateurs
and Mormons, but they play exceedingly well
and the entertainments are, in
all respects, better than we find anywhere
else in the Union, save at four or five leading
metropolitan theatres.”
- New York Daily Tribune.
>>Randy Dixon: At the time it was complete,
it was really the biggest building in town.
From the time that Salt Lake
was settled, inhabitants were interested in
theater. There wasn’t really a lot to do
for entertainment, so I think
Brigham Young realized that people need more
than just their everyday work and, in even
church activities, they
needed something else to have a well-rounded
life.
>>Male Narrator: The Salt Lake Theatre was
iconic. Stories, of early residents paying
for tickets in kind, of packed
houses night after night, of local companies
made up entirely of volunteers, add to its
reputation as the cultural
heart of the city. Before gas and electricity
arrived, 385 oil lamps illuminated the theater
where 1600 locals sat
in three tiers.
Perhaps one of the brightest stars to emerge
from the Salt Lake Theatre was Sarah Alexander.
After settling in
Salt Lake City, her talents soon came to the
attention of Brigham Young, who hired her
to teach his daughter s dancing
lessons, and her social circle soon expanded.
One evening while filling in for an absent
actress during a rehearsal,
the director offered her a role. She refused
three times but finally accepted the part
because Brigham Young wished
she would. In just a few years, Sarah’s
reputation on the stage elevated her to legendary
status, not only among her
peers, but across the country. She played
prominent roles in ‘Hamlet,’ ‘MacBeth,’
and ‘Richard III.’ Sarah never
married, but that wasn’t because she never
had offers. One actor who was working for
a time in Salt Lake City
approached Brigham Young to ask about proposing.
“Young man,” the President replied, “I
have seen you attempt Richard
III and Julius Caesar with fair success, but
I advise you not to aspire to Alexander.”
Legend has it that just few years later, after
Sarah had left Salt Lake City to take the
national stage, another
Salt Lake star was born at the theatre. A
local actress had brought her own infant on
stage during a production of
‘The Lost Child’ as a last-minute substitute.
Calm and docile as ever, she was reported
to have been the perfect child
for the title role. The child, named Maude
Adams, would receive her first leading role
at the age of 16 in New York, and
her beauty and her talent would soon win the
hearts of the entire country.
The end of the 19thcentury was known as the
‘Golden Age’ of the theatre, and both
Maude Adams and Sarah Alexander found
themselves in the top tier of performers.
Adams starred as Peter in ‘Peter Pan,’
and by the mid-teens was making more
than $1 million a year – the highest paid
entertainer of her time. Sarah Alexander’s
career continued to grow as well.
At age 77, she accepted an offer from Twentieth
Century Fox to play character roles in motion
pictures. By the time she
died in 1926at the age of 87, she was heralded
as the nation’s oldest living actress. Her
death brought mourning not only
in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, but
in Salt Lake City as well, where the now-aging
Salt Lake Theatre was facing
its own mortality.
The pioneer-era structure was aging rapidly,
and many caught up in the progressivism of
the 1920’s thought it best to tear
it down, though they did so reluctantly.
>>Male voice: “It may be that its days are
numbered. Perhaps its race is run. Well, if
so, we must bow down to the
inevitable. But whether it shall stand to
carry on or fall before the march of modern
progress, let us not forget that
this romantic and hallowed old play house,
this cathedral in the desert, has been a sacred
shrine symbolizing the sentiments
and ideals of our revered pioneers, that within
its walls have been developed the community’s
very heart and soul.” - George
D. Pyper, Theatre manager.
>>Randy Dixon: 1920’s was a boom time for
America, and the emphasis was on building
new things and these buildings, the
Salt Lake Theatre and the Gardo House, that
was just kind of old fashioned, that was ‘old’
Salt Lake. Those who had the
control of the property, they were interested
in building a ‘new’ Salt Lake.
>>Male Narrator: The debate over saving the
Theatre lasted for months. Some suggested
to moving it to another location,
but the cost was prohibitive. In the end,
officials decided to raise the pioneer-era’s
structure, during its final farewell
gala on October 20, 1928, dignitaries and
leaders from across the region came to pay
their final respects to the old play house.
>>Male Voice: “The Salt Lake Theatre had
helped thousands of magnificent and thrilled
audiences, but never had it housed a more
notable, heart-throbbing audience than that
which crowded its walls from pit to dome to
witness the last fall of the historic
curtain on Saturday evening. There were misty
eyes when Mr. Pyper concluded his reminiscences.
He recalled, briefly, the many
interesting events in the old days of the
play house in the 30 years he had acted as
manager. In conclusion, he thanked the boys
of the theatre staff, and sweeping his glance
over the entire interior, bade the theater
farewell.” - Salt Lake Tribune.
>>Male Narrator: After the theatre cleared
that evening, after the doors closed for the
last time, and after the wrecking ball
knocked over the last stone, the lot was cleared.
Several months later, a gas station materialized
on the site.
As the industrial revolution shifted in to
high gear at the turn of the 20thcentury,
American cities rode a wave of
unprecedented economic development and expansion.
Salt Lake City was no exception. As more people
flocked to the city, the
city catered to their tastes. People began
living there, not only as residents, but as
participants, spending a part of
themselves in the bustle of humanity and taking
home with them a piece of community.
>>Stephen Goldsmith: There’s a lot that’s
been written about the democracy of the street.
Streets are arguably the most
important organs of cities. Those are the
places that everybody feels that they have
a place, no matter how you look, no matter
how old you are, no matter how you are dressed.
Those are the places everybody is welcome.
>>Male Narrator: By the 1920’s Blocks 75
and 76 had become a complex grid of stores,
businesses, and apartment houses. In
the space of only two of those blocks, dozens
of doors led to establishments like Utah Café,
White Sewing Machine Company,
the Deseret News, Zions Savings Bank and Trust,
ZCMI, Wasatch Lawn Cemetery Office, Painless
Withers Dental Company, and
Daynes Music.
When it came to mixed use, Main Street was
about as mixed as it could get.
>>Sarah Marrow: They had boarding houses and
music stores. They had a small grocer, they
had a shoe repair, they had a movie
theatre, they had a bank. I love the idea
that you could just live on this one block
and never cross the street and get
everything you needed done.
>>Male Narrator: Like many Main Streets in
the roaring 20’s, Salt Lake’s rode the
crescendo of prosperity and its downtown
had become the clear commercial hub of the
entire region.
>>Stephen Goldsmith: In planning, we use the
phrase the “100% corner” and the “100%
corner” is that place in a city which
is the most active, the most vital, the most
economically significant, socially significant,
and in Utah, the “100% corner”
is South Temple and Main Street .
>>Male Narrator: On the corner of Main Street
and South Temple, where the Zions Bank building
now stands, the stylish Templeton
Hotel stood for 70 years. When it opened in
1890, it boasted an elegant reading room,
barber shops, and guest rooms with electric
lights and appliances. Directly across Main
Street on Block 76, the lot that once held
the Council House, had seen multiple uses
over the years. During the 1897 Jubilee, it
hosted a museum built to resemble the Greek
Parthenon, called the Hall of Relics.
It temporarily housed a number of pioneer
artifacts. However, as the turn of the century
neared, the site would be raised once
again for a new permanent structure that would
house Utah’s largest newspaper, the ‘Deseret
News.’ Designed by renowned local
architect Richard K.A. Kletting, the new building
was 6 stories tall and featured the city’s
two fastest elevators.
By 1911, the Deseret News had brought in the
fastest printing press between Chicago and
the west coast called ‘Old Betsy.’
It could pump out 32,000 newspapers per hour.
But while the presses spit out an endless
stream of news print, another communication
revolution was quietly underway. In 1922,
from atop the building, a faint electromagnetic
signal flew in to the atmosphere and
was picked up by only a few with the equipment
to decipher the strange new medium.
[Radio Static]
>>Male Voice: “Hello! Hello! Hello! This
is KZN, KZN, The Deseret News, Salt Lake City
calling. KZN calling! Greetings!”
>>Male Narrator: It was May 6, 1922, and Nate
Fullmer’s excited words opened the first
radio broadcast in Utah. Situated atop
the Deseret News building, KZN, later known
as KSL, became Salt Lake City’s first radio
station. Crowding outside the radio shack
that day were LDS Church President Heber J.
Grant, his wife, and other church and community
leaders. Mrs. Grant remarked:
>>Female Voice: “I think this is one of
the most wonderful experiences of our lives.
I would not be surprised if we were talking
to the planets before many years.”
>>Male Narrator: KZN joined the ranks of just
30 radio stations in existence that year in
the United States. Only one year later,
the number would go grow to 556 stations,
all broadcasting to over half a million receivers.
The teens and twenties saw unprecedented growth
in downtown Salt Lake. The city came alive
as never before. Up and down Main Street,
shoppers shoulder to shoulder raced over the
sidewalks. However, a new phenomenon would
soon emerge that would force Blocks 75 and
76
again to attune to the times: the automobile.
The automobile made Salt Lake the downtown
for people living hundreds of miles away
and they came in cars by the thousands. Salt
Lake’s celebrated street car lines had vanished
by 1941 and the roads were now dominated
by Fords and Chevys, fresh off Detroit assembly
lines. Soon, more historic structures were
raised, this time to make way for parking
lots.
>>Stephen Goldsmith: One can see the role
of automobile as being utterly transformative.
We began to devote, in some cases, up to
50% of the land just to the automobile.
>>Randy Dixon: The first parking terraces
in Utah were built on those blocks. Temple
Square Hotel, they built the Temple Square
parking
terraces behind it in the 50’s, and then
ZCMI built a big parking terrace at about
the same time period, which was being done
all over
the country.
>>Male Narrator: Despite the intrusive influence
of the automobile on Blocks 75 & 76, this
was an unprecedented period of growth and
vitality for the area, and grow it did.
[Music]
After World War II, America was on an economic
high. Suburbs materialized east, west, and
south of the city and the further out they
developed, the less their occupants felt the
tug of Salt Lake’s commercial district.
Slowly but steadily, downtown’s glimmer
faded as
shoppers opted for outlets closer to home.
Downtown developers decided they needed to
take quick action if they wanted to compete
with
suburban retail centers. Their decision led
to the largest disruption Block 75 ever encountered.
By 1975, the completion of the ZCMI Center
consolidated over three quarters of the block
into one massive shopping mall and accompanying
parking terrace, and the street was
essentially moved indoors. Five years later,
the Crossroads Plaza brought a 2.2 million
square foot shopping mall, parking terrace,
and
office space to Block 76. While the malls
corridors teamed with life, it was a new,
different kind of life, one that only awoke
during
business hours. It was different, but it was
hugely successful - for a while. Only 30 years
later, the downtown malls were completely
torn
down.
>>Stephen Goldsmith: Back in the 70’s and
80’s, city councils and planning commissions
and chambers of commerce used to say, “What
would
we do to revitalize our downtowns? What would
we do to draw people to our downtown?” But
the way that the great urbanist Jane Jacobs
described
it is: that was a ridiculous question. Why
would you try to draw people to your downtown?
Put people downtown! And that’s what’s
happening now
by having people living there 24 hours a day.
>>Male Narrator: Today, Blocks 75 and 76 are
being built anew – again. Brick and mortar
residential buildings now sit alongside shops
and offices. Richards Street has reappeared
as a pedestrian walkway. City Creek has been
lifted from its subterranean passageway, and
now
takes an outdoor, slightly irregular route
through a curved canyon of store-fronts, each
sheathed in panes of glass. Across the street,
a
grocery store has bought standard food prices
within easy walking distance. For the first
time in more than 40 years, Blocks 75 and
76 are
becoming a place where many people call ‘home.’
>>Stephen Goldsmith: I think If we look around
the world at those place that are vital, vibrant,
parts of cities, they have a 24-hour-a-day
life, that mix of uses that’s 24-hours-a-day.
And that mix of uses is not just over the
hours of the day, but it is the kind of uses
that are
there, and that’s now returning to both
of those blocks. I think we really have come
to understand that the liveliness of the city
is about
its people and their ability to live complete
lives in any part of the city.
>>Male Narrator: A new era dawns for the heart
of the city and no one can forecast what the
future will bring. But somehow it’s fitting.
The
21st century of Salt Lake City has returned
to reminders of its early beginnings. Rail
cars climb through the streets once again.
Small shops
will put their dreams on the line. A grand
theatre is a part of the vision, just as it
was 150 years ago. And an American city with
deep and
enduring roots turns the page.
[Music]
>>Female Voice: Programming support for “Salt
Lake City: A Downtown Story” was made possible
by the members of KUED, in partnership with
Zions
Bank: bringing value and vibrancy to our communities
through support of quality local productions;
and the Larry S. and Allyson Smith Challenge
Fund: encouraging individuals and businesses
throughout Utah to support KUED Community
Affairs Programming.
On July 24,[citation needed] 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 northernmost 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.[7]
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".[citation needed] Originally, Fillmore, Utah was the territorialcapital, 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 department store, a decade earlier New York City's "Marble Palace" and Macy's vied for that title.
Change was inevitable. The world started to come to Salt Lake City in 1869 with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, north of the city. By 1870 Salt Lake had been linked to it via the Utah Central Rail Road. People began to pour into Salt Lake seeking opportunities in mining and other industries.
Street view, Salt Lake City, 1869
City government was dominated by the People's Party until 1890. The non-national People's Party was an LDS-controlled political organization, and each of the early mayors of Salt Lake City was LDS. Sparks often flew between LDS city government and non-LDS federal authorities stationed just outside Salt Lake. A dramatic example occurred in 1874 when city police were arrested by US Marshals, who took control of the national election being held in Salt Lake City. Mayor Daniel H. Wells, a member of the LDS Church First Presidency, declared martial law from the balcony of the Old Salt Lake City Hall. Federal troops arrested the mayor, but he was soon released.
In the 1880s, the anti-polygamyEdmunds-Tucker Act systematically denied many prominent LDS Church members the right to vote or hold office. Polygamists were detained in a Federal prison just outside Salt Lake in the Sugar House area. Consequentially, the non-LDS Liberal Party took control of City government in the 1890 election. Three years later the Liberal Party and People's Party dissolved into national parties anticipating Utah statehood, but both LDS and non-LDS leaders would govern Salt Lake City from that point onward.
The city became Utah's state capital on January 4, 1896, when Utah entered the union upon PresidentGrover Cleveland's decree after the LDS Church agreed to ban polygamy in 1890.
The city adopted a non-partisan city council in 1911. As LDS/non-LDS tensions eased people began to work together for the common good, improving roads, utilities and public healthcare.
Downtown Salt Lake City circa 1913
Salt Lake City suburb, 1909
Armed delivery of liquor & beer, 1917
The Great Depression hit Salt Lake City especially hard. At its peak, the unemployment rate reached 61,500 people, about 36%. The annual per capita income in 1932 was $276, half of what it was in 1929, $537 annually. Jobs were scarce. Although boosted by federal New Deal programs as well as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the economy did not fully recover until World War II.
After suffering through the depression Salt Lake's economy was boosted during World War II due to the influx of defense industries to the Wasatch Front. Demands for raw materials increased Utah's mining industry, and several military installations such as Fort Douglas and Hill Air Force Base were added.
After the Second World War, Salt Lake City grew rapidly. It began to suffer some of the same problems other cities face. Urban sprawl became a growing problem due to a combination of rapid growth and an abundance of available land. Military and aerospace also became dominant industries.
Salt Lake began its bid for the Winter Olympics as early as the 1930s, when the Utah Ski Club tried to bring the games to the valley. At the time, however, the Summer Olympic host city had the option of hosting the winter games, and all attempts failed. Salt Lake tried again throughout the decades until 1995, when the International Olympic Committee announced Salt Lake City as the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
After 132 years in business, ZCMI was sold to the May Department Stores Company in 1999. Remaining ZCMI stores, including one in downtown Salt Lake City, were converted into Meier & Frank stores, although the facade still reads "1868 ZCMI 1999".
In April 1999, the Salt Lake City council voted 5 to 2 along LDS membership lines to sell to the LDS Church the segment of Main Street that lay between Temple Square and the LDS Church office buildings for $8.1 million. The Church planned to build a large plaza on the land as well as a parking structure below. There was much public outcry about the sale of public lands to a private organization, but a Church representative assured residents that the plaza would be a "little bit of Paris", a characterization that would be used against the LDS Church later. Concerns also lay in plans to ban such activities as demonstrations, skateboarding, sunbathing, smoking, and other activities it considered "vulgar". The Utah ACLU believed that these restrictions were incompatible with the pedestrian easement that the city retained over the plaza. ACLU attorneys claimed this made the plaza into a public free speech forum. Nonetheless, the property was sold to become the Main Street Plaza. After the Utah District Court ruled against the ACLU, they were vindicated by the 10th Circuit Court in the Fall of 2002. Scrambling to satisfy residents, Rocky Anderson offered a plan for "time and place" restrictions on speech as suggested by the court. However, the LDS Church held firm to get the easement rescinded. Although The Salt Lake Tribune backed the mayor's initial plan, the city council disliked it. In its place, Anderson offered to waive the easement in exchange for west side property from the LDS Church to build a community and a commitment of donations for it. All parties agreed to the arrangement, and the Main Street Plaza is now wholly owned by the LDS Church. Some suppose Anderson's compromise was an effort to strengthen his 2003 re-election campaign among Latter-day Saints and west side residents. Both groups tended to have less favorable impressions of the former mayor.
The games opened with the 1980 US hockey team lighting the torch and President George W. Bush officially opening the games.
Controversy erupted when in the first week the pairs figure skating competition resulted in the French judge's scores being thrown out and the Canadian team of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier being awarded a second gold medal. Athletes in short-track speed skating and cross-country skiing were disqualified for various reasons as well (including doping), leading Russia and South Korea to file protests and threaten to withdraw from competition.
Heightened fear of terrorism following the September 11 attacks turned out to be unfounded, and the games proved safe.
The 2002 games ended with a dazzling closing ceremony, including bands such as Bon Jovi and KISS (who shared the stage with figure skaterKatarina Witt).
Most of the 2,500 athletes paraded into Rice-Eccles Stadium, watching from the stands. Bobsledding bronze medalist Brian Shimer carried the American flag. Russia and South Korean both threatened to boycott the ceremony to protest what they felt was unfair judging, but showed up anyway.
Legacy
Many improvements were made to the area's infrastructure. $1.59 billion were spent on highway improvements, including improvements of Interstate 15 through the city and new interchanges near Park City. A light rail system was constructed from downtown to the suburb of Sandy and later to the University of Utah.
The Athlete's Village is now student housing at the University of Utah. Many venues in and around the city still stand even after the games.
Salt Lake City still struggles with its identity, trying to strike a balance between capitol of a major religion and modern secular city. Efforts are being made to revitalize the downtown and to adjust to the phenomenal growth of the area. The LDS Church recently bought the Crossroads and ZCMI malls and rebuilt them into the new City Creek Center mall, which is connected by walkways, and with new apartment and office buildings nearby. The commuter railFrontRunner is in place along the northern Wasatch Front, with extensions planned for the southern portion of the region. Light rail extensions are planned to provide service to the western and southern suburbs, as well as to Salt Lake City International Airport. The controversial Legacy Highway has one segment completed (the Legacy Parkway), with the construction of the early phase of the next segment (the Mountain View Corridor) completed through the west side of the Salt Lake Valley.
^Pages 6 and 7, The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre, Brigham D. Madsen, forward by Charles S. Peterson, University of Utah Press (1985, paperback 1995), trade paperback, 286 pages, ISBN0-87480-494-9
^"Place and Personal Names of the Gosiute Indians of Utah, Page 12". 1913: 1–20. doi:10.2307/983995. JSTOR983995. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^"Place and Personal Names of the Gosiute Indians of Utah, Page 9". 1913: 1–20. doi:10.2307/983995. JSTOR983995. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
This page was last edited on 2 February 2021, at 14:53