Deseret News 175 years: From settlement to 3.5M people
Those Native Americans included members of the Ute, Paiute, Goshute, Shoshone and Navajo tribes. The pioneers themselves numbered around 1,637 that first year.
'When the pioneers arrived here, there was already a substantial Indian civilization and culture existing,' Elder Marlin K. Jensen, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a July 24, 2010 speech on what is now celebrated as Pioneer Day.
The pioneers no more 'discovered' the Great Basin than Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America, he said.
Elder Jensen, a former church historian who is now an emeritus general authority, cited a July 31, 1847, journal entry from Mormon pioneer William Clayton: '(The Shoshone) appear to be displeased because we have traded with the Utahs, and (the Shoshone) say that they own this land and the Utahs have come over the line.'
'The truth of the matter is that the Mormon pioneers had 'come over the line' as well,' Elder Jensen said. 'Perhaps only Brigham Young, with his prophetic gifts, could have foreseen at that time that the tiny trickle of pioneers who were then coming into the Great Basin would one day, in just a few years, grow into a mighty stream of immigrants.'
As more pioneers arrived, the population in the territory grew to an estimated 3,000 in 1848. Two years later, it more than tripled to 11,380. And over the next decade, it swelled to 40,273 in 1860, a 253% increase, according to U.S. census figures.
Though not at that rapid rate, Utah has sustained marked growth since 1900. More recently, it was the fastest-growing state in the country from 2010 to 2020.
As of July 2024, Utah had a population of 3.5 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Among the few possessions those early pioneers lugged across the plains was a Ramage printing press in an ox-pulled wagon. Named after American printing press manufacturer Adam Ramage, pioneer William Phelps bought the press in Boston. It was used to print the first issue of the Deseret News on June 15, 1850.
Since that day, the Deseret News has chronicled life in what is now Utah and beyond, including the state's dramatic growth over the past 175 years.
The early settlers immediately began planting crops and building houses in their new high desert home. And Brigham Young started making plans.
'Although the struggle for survival was difficult in the first years of settlement, the Mormons were better equipped by experience than many other groups to tame the harsh land. They had pioneered other settlements in the Midwest, and their communal religious faith underscored the necessity of cooperative effort. Basic industries developed rapidly, the city was laid out, and building began,' according to historytogo.utah.gov.
Settlement of outlying areas began as soon as possible. Between 1847 and 1900, the Latter-day Saints founded about 500 settlements in Utah and neighboring states.
The dawn of the 20th century brought technological revolutions that would transform society. Salt Lake City saw its first automobile early in the 1900s, and the first airplane wasn't far behind.
A U.S. census bulletin dated Feb. 4, 1901, showed Utah — only admitted as a state five years earlier — with a population of 276,749, a 33% increase over a decade earlier.
'The population of Utah in 1900 is more than twenty-four times as large as that given for 1850, the year Utah was organized as a territory,' according to the bulletin.
In the Roaring Twenties, first letters then passengers began flying out of Salt Lake City's Woodward Field, a 100-acre landing strip the city bought in 1920 for mail operations. Named after local pilot John P. Woodward, the field evolved to become the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Utah experienced modest growth through the 1930s, but saw a rapid and sustained influx of immigrants through the 'war years,' the 1940s. Utah's population increased 25.2% during that decade — most coming on the Wasatch Front — as it grew from 555,310 to 688,862, according to HistoryToGo.
Immigration greatly increased the minority population, especially as Black and Hispanic people moved in to take defense jobs. Many immigrants during that period were not members of the predominant religion. The U.S. government also relocated 10,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast to Topaz, Utah, as part of an anti-Japanese movement during World War II.
In 1947, Utahns celebrated 100 years in the Salt Lake Valley. Despite earlier problems the U.S. government had with those 'pesky Mormons,' as the Deseret News-produced book 'Through Our Eyes' put it, all was forgotten. President Harry S Truman sent congratulations on the pioneer centennial:
'Utah stands in a proud place among her sister commonwealths. Her rich agriculture, her business and industry, her pioneering in social services, her zeal of education, and not the least, her men of wisdom and valiant women have given her prestige unexcelled by any other state.'
As of July 2024, Utah was 75.5% white, 16% Hispanic, 2.9% Asian, 1.6% Black and 1.6% Native American or Alaska Native, according to the U.S. census statistics.
Through the 1950s and early 1960s, the state's population kept a steady pace toward 1 million residents, finally hitting the mark in 1966.
Community leaders celebrated the achievement by greeting Utah's newest resident, Morris M. Arnold — dubbed 'Mr. Million' — with a 60-piece band as he stepped off the airplane from Kentucky.
The state's population reached 2 million just 29 years later. And 20 years later, the Beehive State hit that 3 million population milestone sometime in October 2015.
'Three million Utahns. Wow,' Pam Perlich, director of demographic research at the University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, said at the time. She called it a 'stunning achievement' for a geographically isolated Intermountain state that in 1950 had only 500,000 residents who came and went based on the ebbs and flows of agriculture and mining.
The state picked up another 60,000 residents between July 2023 and July 2024, pushing it past 3.5 million, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
Last October, the Gardner Institute projected Utah would grow from 3.5 million to 4 million residents between 2024-2033, an average annual growth rate of 1.5%.
'The short-term projections indicate continued statewide population growth driven by a nearly 50/50 split between natural increase and net migration out to 2033. Continued economic growth largely drives this migration of new residents to Utah,' said Mallory Bateman, director of demographic research at Gardner. 'A combination of historical data, trends and local expert knowledge inform our baseline projection scenario.'
Utah's seven most populated counties in 2023 were Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Washington, Cache and Tooele, and that order is not expected to change by 2023, per the Gardner Institute.
The order of growth, however, differs for those counties.
Utah County is predicted to gain the most new residents (164,000), followed by Salt Lake (125,000), Washington (63,000), Davis (43,000), Weber (27,000), Cache (22,000) and Tooele (20,000).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
a day ago
Mexico City marks 700 years since its founding by Indigenous people
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico City is marking the 700th anniversary of its founding with a series of public events on Saturday, including artistic performances honoring the city's Indigenous origins. Artists in Indigenous clothing reenacted the founding of the Aztec capital in front of the country's top officials in Mexico City's main square. Later, hundreds of dancers dressed in traditional clothing, feather headdresses, drums, and ankle rattles made of seeds performed sacred dances meant to connect with nature. The anniversary commemorates the establishment of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica, a group also known as the Aztecs, who settled in the Valley of Mexico in 1325. As recorded by early Spanish chroniclers, Mexica elders told of a divine sign from their patron god Huitzilopochtli: an eagle on a cactus, signaling where to settle. That place became Tenochtitlan, the center of Aztec civilization and the site of today's Mexico City. That symbol was later recorded in the Codex Mendoza, which contained historical accounts of the Aztec empire. It became central to Mexican identity and appears today on the national flag. 'Mexico was not born with the arrival of the Spanish; Mexico was born much earlier with the great civilizations,' said President Claudia Sheinbaum in a speech in which she urged the eradication of the racism that still persists in the country. Tenochtitlan began as a village on an island in a lake ringed by volcanic peaks. But historians say many other details that have come down in history are based heavily on legend, and that the exact founding date is unknown. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they were awed by a city filled with palaces, bridges, canals and bustling trade, according to Spanish chronicler and conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Historian Miguel Pastrana of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Historic Investigations Institute, an expert on Tenochtitlan, said the weekend's festivities are 'political and civic" and do not reflect the latest historical research. The historical record describes the Mexica as a people who migrated from a place called Aztlan, supposedly an island whose exact location remains unknown. They knew how to fish, gather aquatic plants and hunt birds, as well as build dams, and they tried to settle in several places before arriving in the Valley of Mexico. The main island in the lake was already populated by the Tepaneca people, but they allowed the Mexica to settle there in exchange for tribute payments and other services, Pastrana said. Little by little, the Mexica's power grew. They were strong warriors and commercially prosperous, and they were effective at making alliances with other peoples. Tenochtitlan became a great city at the center of an empire until the Spanish conquered it in 1521.
New York Times
3 days ago
- New York Times
A Bid to Undo a Colonial-Era Wrong Touches a People's Old Wounds
First it was the British. Then the Christian missionaries. Then the Indian state they had never asked to be a part of. For centuries, the Indigenous Naga people of the Indian subcontinent have struggled to preserve their culture against external forces. Now, Nagas are trying to reclaim a part of that lost history, but the process has been anything but straightforward. Their efforts to repatriate ancestral remains, which have been in a British museum for more than a century, have been 'a trigger for the Nagas,' said Dolly Kikon, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who is Naga herself. Naga society has changed immensely since those remains were taken. To contemplate their return means reckoning with those changes, and with how many of them are the result of external forces and violence. ARUNACHAL PRADESH NEPAL Longleng ASSAM NAGALAND Dimapur INDIA MANIPUR MYANMAR CHINA New Delhi INDIA Mumbai Bay of Bengal 200 mileS By The New York Times Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
‘Our story is beautiful:' Miami's historic ‘Blacks-only' beach turns 80
N. Patrick Range II has heard his grandmother M. Athalie Range's stories about the history of Virginia Key Beach Park — the memories of taking the ferry to visit the island, hosting celebrations and churches holding sunrise services. But the conversations he remembers most are about the fight for preserving it: Hearing his grandmother — the first Black person to serve on the Miami city commission — trying to get people to understand that the beach was worth saving at a time when there was consideration given to selling off the beachfront to private developers. His grandmother, he said, understood the deeply held memories of a community who made Virginia Key Beach Park, Miami's Blacks-only beach, a sacred place and the significance it held. Read more: It started as a Blacks-only beach. A lot of Miami history has been made on Virginia Key 'She understood that, and understood the importance of the community, and understood the importance of our youth and those who hadn't even been born yet, being able to enjoy and appreciate the park, and not just Black people, but also the entirety of the Miami community, understanding what this was and what it meant for us,' Range said. Range, 48, said the restoration of the park is critical at a time when the preservation of Black history faces political headwinds across the state and nationwide. But as the park celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, he envisions more, including the promise of a long-planned Black history museum that would highlight the Black immigrant story in Miami. 'The idea was that because of the historical significance of Virginia Key in our history here in Miami, that this would be an ideal place to showcase a history museum dedicated to the Black immigrant experience, and also to give some a nod and recognition to those who were here before us, like the Native Americans who certainly have presence here and significance here in this land,' Range said. Athalie Edwards, who was named for Range's grandmother, is the chair of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, and says that the park is making progress on necessary upgrades to their amenities such as the train and carousel, holdovers from the park's early days during Jim Crow. 'We're working on it, however, we would like to present the information to the public all at one time,' she said, adding she wasn't at liberty to discuss the matter further. The plans for a museum do appear to be marching forward. At a May 13 Key Biscayne village council meeting, Edwards announced a groundbreaking ceremony for the museum scheduled for Aug. 1, but that has been delayed citing some 'important attendees' unable to make the ceremony. The museum would honor both the civil rights legacy and the environmental significance of the park, Edwards said at the time. Despite the delay, she said, there is so much more to celebrate when it comes to the park, which is commemorating its history with a three-day celebration that will include a Friday birthday celebration including complimentary cake, ice cream and free vehicle entry. On Saturday, the festivities continue with a community fun day, which includes treats, a waterslide for children, a beach clean up along with tours and collecting oral histories from people who've visited the beach in its earlier years. The celebration concludes Sunday with the Poetry Potluck spoken word series. 'Our story is beautiful. It came through some hard times, through segregation, the Jim Crow era. However, it's still a beautiful story that should be told,' Edwards said. RELATED: This museum would tell the story of Miami's segregated era. It has stalled for years Before Virginia Key Beach became known as the first beach for Black people in Miami-Dade County, civil rights activists with support from the local NAACP held a wade-in in May 1945 at the whites-only Haulover Beach. That prompted Dade County commissioners to establish Virginia Key's beach as a 'colored-only' beach only three months later, on Aug. 1, 1945. Before the causeway was completed in 1947, it was only accessible by boat or ferry. Known for family gatherings and 'splashdown' parties, the park became a sacred place for Black people to visit and make their own, including holding weddings and baptisms there. In 1979, the county transferred ownership to the city of Miami, and closed the park three years later citing maintenance costs. Following conversations about private development at the beach, a group of citizens organized the Virginia Key Beach Park Civil Rights Task Force. Shortly after, the city commission established the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust to oversee the development of the property. The park was closed for 26 years before it reopened in 2008, following restoration efforts. Range said in that time, the park had overgrown with exotic flora and fauna. 'During the years when the park was closed, many invasive species of plants overgrew in the park, things that were not native or natural to the land,' he said. One of the first things the trust did was remove the plants. They then added necessary amenities such as restrooms, power and water. Other fixtures of the park such as the minitrain and the carousel were also restored. The park's trust has had its fair share of controversies. In 2022, Miami commissioners voted to oust the board members, which included Patrick Range, and replaced them with city commission members. Councilwoman Christine King became the trust's board chair and the board appointed two Black attorneys to the board. Range criticized the decision to remove the trust's board members as politically-motivated. In a statement, King said the beach is 'a powerful reminder of the generations whose advocacy turned adversity into legacy' and is a 'testament to our community's strength, pride, and rightful place in the story of Miami.' She did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the museum, but has said in the past she is not in favor of large-scale development. Edwards came into her role in 2023, just as the dust was settling from the shake up, she said, adding much of her work has focused on providing the board with details and updates about the park and letting them know ways they can support it. 'When I got here, everybody was willing to participate and provide us our support, but they really wanted to know what we needed,' she said. Edwards said the trust has expanded its public outreach efforts, including having school field trips and working with senior citizens at Carrie Meek/Charles Hadley Senior Center to collect their oral stories related to the park. She also acknowledged the trust is working with a vendor to get the train back operating and that the carousel is undergoing repairs. For Edwards, the preservation of the park is just as personal to her as it is to Range. 'My stepdad's from Allapattah, and I talk about it in every interview that I do, that was the only beach that he could visit,' she said. 'Mind you, they were all the way inland and driving all the way down here. There's stories some people tell us, before even the causeway was here, that they had to come by boat and ferry. Their grandparents or their parents took them.' Edwards said the park's preservation and 80th celebration helps honor those such as Lawson Thomas who fought for Black people to even have a beach in Miami-Dade County. She noted that activists risked their lives so that Black people could enjoy recreation, and even then she pointed out that Black people were given the worst part of the beach. 'We made it the best part of the beach for us, the people,' she said. Despite his criticisms, Range said celebrating the park this weekend is a chance to 'bang the drum for Virginia Key Beach Park' and make people aware of it and its importance given the current political climate. 'This is an opportunity to counteract that, to let the local politicians know that our history is important to us and we're not just going to let it go away,' he said. 'We're going to celebrate it and we expect you to celebrate it with us and promote it.' If you go: WHAT: Historic Virginia Key Beach Park 80th Anniversary WHEN: Friday, Aug. 1 - Sunday, Aug. 3 WHERE: Virginia Key Beach Park COST: Free INFO:
