History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

CHAPTER XXVI.
SETTLEMENTS, SOCIETY, AND EDUCATION.
1 862-1 8S6.
Population and Statistics—Salt Lake City— The Temple— The New
Tabernacle—The Museum— Condition of the Inhabitants—Distinctive
Features—Salt Lake County—Davis County—Ogden—
Cache County— Rich County— Summit County— Brigham City—
Nephi—Provo—Uintah, Emery, San Juan, Garfield, and Piute
Counties—Sanpete and Sevier Counties—Iron, Kane, and Washington
Counties—Schools—The University of Deseret—The Deseret
Alphabet—Libraries—Journals and Journalism.
In all the stages of her existence, Utah has been
constantly expanding, her growth, far from depleting
her resources, only adding to her strength. Originally
one of the most barren spots on the face of nature,
with nothing to attract even attention, the land
has become as fruitful a field, and her people as busy a
commonwealth, as can be found, with few exceptions,
elsewhere on the Pacific slope. With her unkindly
soil, her extremes of temperature, the thermometer
varying between 110° above and 20° below zero, 1 her
slight and uncertain rainfall, without foliage, except
such as was found here and there in narrow, rockribbed
gorges, with fuel almost inaccessible at points
where habitation was possible, with no nearer sources
of general supply than the small and scattered communities
on the Pacific coast, and with all sources of supply
often practically cut off—amid this forbidding and
1 On Feb. 5, 1849, the mercury stood at 33° below zero at S. L. City. The
mean temperature for 19 years was 51° 9', and the highest 104° in 1871. For
meteorological tables, see Meteor Reg., passim; Surgeon-Gen. Circ. 8, 1875,
pp. rl 339-40, 345; Wheeler's Surveys, ii. 535 et seq.
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