⛪Utah

The Beehive State

Utah was founded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who trekked west from Illinois in 1847 under the leadership of Brigham Young. The faith still shapes the state — about 55% of Utahns are Latter-day Saints, higher than any other religion's share in any other state. The landscape is stunning: five national parks, the Great Salt Lake, and the red-rock canyon country of the Colorado Plateau.

Latter-day Saint Migration

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — founded in New York in 1830 by Joseph Smith — were repeatedly driven from their settlements in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. After Smith was killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois in 1844, Brigham Young led the main body of the faithful west. The first company reached the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847 — a date still celebrated in Utah as Pioneer Day. Young reportedly said, "This is the right place" as they emerged from Emigration Canyon.

Statehood Struggles

Utah applied for statehood six times and was rejected each time — largely over the Church's practice of plural marriage (polygamy). Federal legislation in the 1880s aggressively prosecuted polygamists and seized Church property. In 1890, Church President Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto declaring the end of new plural marriages. Utah finally became a state in 1896, with a state constitution that permanently banned polygamy.

The Mighty Five

Utah's "Mighty Five" national parks are among the most scenic landscapes on Earth: Arches, with its 2,000-plus natural stone arches; Canyonlands, carved by the Colorado and Green Rivers; Capitol Reef, a hundred-mile "waterpocket fold" of uplifted rock; Bryce Canyon, famous for its red-orange hoodoos; and Zion, a deep slot canyon cut by the Virgin River. Plus seven national monuments, the Bonneville Salt Flats, and the Great Salt Lake — the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere.

Silicon Slopes and Games

The Wasatch Front — Salt Lake City, Provo, Ogden — has become a major technology hub known as Silicon Slopes. Adobe, Qualtrics, Domo, Ancestry, and Instructure are all major Utah tech employers. Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and will host the 2034 Winter Olympics. The Greatest Snow on Earth (a registered trademark) and the Wasatch range's proximity to the capital make Utah one of the world's premier skiing destinations.

Utah Facts

• The Great Salt Lake is saltier than the ocean — sometimes up to eight times saltier — and nothing lives in it except brine shrimp.
• The transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met at the "Golden Spike."
• The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (now the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square) is one of the oldest continuously performing choirs in the world.
• Utah has the highest birth rate and youngest median age of any U.S. state.
• The shape of Utah — nearly a rectangle with a notch cut from the northeast — is one of only three "rectangular" state outlines.

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