UTAH

UTAH. In a nation without an established church, Utah represents the closest thing to a theocracy that the United States has ever seen. With a land area of 82,168 square miles and despite a swelling urban population in the late twentieth century, Utah remains one of the least densely populated states in the United States with 27.2 persons per square mile. Physically, the Wasatch Mountains divide the state of Utah into the Central Rocky Mountain Province, the Colorado Plateau Province, and the Great Basin, where the greatest concentration of hot springs in the United States is to be found. Elevation varies from a high of 13,258 feet to a low of 2,350 feet and there is considerable climatic variation, with the highest rainfall in the mountains. The 2000 Census reported 2,233,169 residents, 89.2 percent of whom were white and only 0.8 percent black, with 9.0 percent of Hispanic origin.

More than two-thirds of Utah's residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

From Native Americans to Latter-day Saints

Utah's earliest inhabitants, the Anasazi, occupied southern Utah, living in permanent villages and using flood-plain agriculture. Around A.D. 1100, the Numic Indians settled the Great Basin with more efficient harvesting technology, an organization that was familial, and with weak tribal structures. Although Utah lay on the borders of the Spanish Empire, trade developed with Spanish communities in present-day New Mexico and further south. It was not until the 1820s, however, that American and British fur trappers entered the region, erecting a number of forts that were later to provide assistance to migrants crossing to California. Increasing acquaintance with the Utah region drew the attention of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, seeking land in the remote West after the murder in 1844 of its leader, Joseph Smith. In February 1846 the Mormons left Illinois, led by their president, Brigham Young. The members of an advance party reached the Salt Lake Valley on 22 July 1847, where they found fertile soils and an adequate growing season at the crossroads of the overland route to California. By 1860, forty thousand Euro-Americans resided in Utah. The church used a lottery to assign town lots and distributed land and water rights systematically, with water held on the principle of cooperative ownership. Although more sympathetic to the Numic Indians than other Euro-Americans, the Mormons still sought to acquire their lands and interfered in the Ute trade in slaves, leading to the Walker War of 1853.

The First Years of Settlement

Negotiations in 1849 to create a state proved abortive and instead Utah Territory was established. Conflict arose in 1857, after the territory had accorded local probate courts original jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases to avoid federally administered justice. That year President James Buchanan sent out the army to remove Brigham Young as governor of the territory. After a standoff in which the Mormons destroyed Forts Bridger and Supply, fortified Echo Canyon, and sought to deny the invaders access to grass and livestock that they would need, a compromise was reached whereby the federal government offered an amnesty in return for submission, although federal troops remained until 1861. The Mormon state continued to grow, with twenty thousand new immigrants arriving between 1859 and 1868. They spread out into the higher valleys and created settlements to mine minerals and grow cotton and flax. During the Civil War they remained loyal to the Union, despite passage of the Morrill Anti-bigamy Act (1862), which targeted the practice of polygamy in the territory. In 1868, the church established Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution to serve as wholesaler and distributor for a network of cooperative enterprises in Mormon communities. At Brigham Young's behest, an attempt was also made to foster a more comprehensive cooperative system—the United Order—but it ultimately failed.

Economic Development

During the 1860s, the first commercial mining of silver took place at Bingham Canyon. The full potential of mining was only realized, however, with the completion of a trans-state rail link in 1869. The new mines that resulted benefited from new technologies, outside investment, and the cooperation of the Mormon communities, many of which were involved in selling agricultural produce to the mining districts. Although not initially working as miners, Mormons were increasingly encouraged by the church to do so, provided they continued to work their farms. Despite the fact that mine work was dangerous, most Mormon miners refused to join unions and were regarded unfavorably by their non-Mormon neighbors. By 1880, Utah Territory had become dependent on coal mining, while wheat, sugar beets, and growing numbers of sheep and cattle gave a boost to commercial agriculture. The LDS Church created Zion's Central Board of Trade to plan home industry and provide a market for goods; the board also worked with non-Mormon businesses. By 1890, 36 percent of Utah Territory's residents lived in cities, a greater proportion than in the rest of the nation, although water supply and sewerage systems remained of low quality. Culturally, too, Utah attracted attention, with the formation of the Salt Lake Art Association in 1881 (later to become the Utah Art Association) and the new prominence accorded the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after its appearance at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The War Against Polygamy

Such progress, however, was hampered by the federal prosecution of the practice of polygamy by members of the LDS Church. The territory's chief justice, James McKean, worked to exclude Mormons from jury service and brought charges of immorality against Mormon leaders. Although around three-quarters of Mormon families were monogamous, polygamy was often regarded as the basis for holding high office in the church. In 1882, the Edmunds Act provided sanctions for unlawful cohabitation and allowed exclusion of jurors who supported polygamy. Over one thousand Mormons were imprisoned during the 1880s for violating the act, but the Mormon-dominated People's Party retained control of the legislature. The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 targeted the LDS Church by providing for the confiscation of all church property above fifty thousand dollars. During the 1880s, moreover, the gentile population of Utah Territory rose considerably and the anti-Mormon Liberal Party gained control of the cities of Ogden and Salt Lake City. The threatened confiscation of church property led LDS president Wilford Woodruff to issue the Manifesto of 1890, which revoked the practice of polygamy. The church also had some of its prominent figures join the Republican Party in order to avoid a political schism on religious lines since, prior to statehood, most Mormons had belonged to the national Democratic Party, which was more sympathetic to their call for states' rights. In preparation for statehood in 1896, Utah drafted a constitution that enshrined religious freedom and prohibited polygamy. At the same time, church property and civil rights were restored to the Latter-day Saints.

Commercial Agriculture and Mining

Before 1896 the farm frontier was concentrated on the irrigated and urbanized Wasatch Front and Sanpete Valley. Afterward, it shifted to more rural areas, aided by dry farming, made possible by hoarding moisture from winter rain; this helped increase farm size. Dairy farming came to northern Utah around 1900 and horticulture to the central Utah Valley in the early twentieth century. Attitudes toward water rights became less communitarian, allowing owners to buy and sell them, but in 1898 the state supreme court ruled that water could not be appropriated except for a beneficial purpose. Damage to grazing land led to the setting aside of forest reserves in 1897 and 1902 to protect watersheds and timberlands, a move supported by the LDS Church and Senator Reed Smoot. Mining production also expanded dramatically, rising from a return of $10.4 million in 1896 to $99.3 million in 1917. The exploitation of low-grade copper was a key factor here, and the world's largest copper smelter was installed at Garfield in 1906. The mines attracted Italian and Greek immigrants who were not Mormons and had their own network of ethnic associations and churches. They formed the basis for new industrial unions like the Western Federation of Miners, which established its headquarters in Salt Lake City for a time during the late 1890s. In strikes by the United Mine Workers against the Utah Fuel Company in 1903–1904 and by the Western Federation of Miners against the Utah Copper Company in 1912 the unions were decisively beaten.

The Progressive Era

Republicans exploited the rising tide of national prosperity at the turn of the century to achieve political dominance. In 1903, LDS apostle Reed Smoot gained a U.S. Senate seat and built a political machine in Utah known as the Federal Bunch. Only in 1916 did Progressives succeed in electing its first Democratic governor, Simon Bamberger, and a new legislature that enacted statewide prohibition, established public utility and industrial commissions, and allowed peaceful picketing. The Progressive impulse extended to Salt Lake City, where the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs was active in social reform. A Civic Improvement League was created in 1906, bringing together a variety of interest groups of different religious and political backgrounds that called for better paving and more parks. A comprehensive planning system for the city was conceived in 1917 and carried through in the 1920s. One aspect of this effort at urban improvement was the fight against air pollution, led by businessman and state legislator George Dern, who sponsored a bill in 1915 to set up a cooperative research program to investigate the smelter smoke problem from the burning of soft coal.

During World War I, the LDS Church and its affiliates were active in Liberty Bond work and offered Americanization classes for new immigrants, while Utah provided 20,872 recruits for the armed services of whom 447 were killed. With the coming of the 1920s, the state turned back to the Republican Party, but in 1924 Democrat George Dern was elected governor thanks to Republican intraparty strife. Although the legislature remained under Republican control, it signed on to the federal Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act of 1923 that provided matching health-care grants for infants and their mothers. The state also participated in negotiations that led to the Colorado River Compact, designed to ensure reasonable use of the river's water by states through which it flowed.

The Great Depression

Mining and agricultural activity remained at a comparatively low level during the 1920s. After 1920, Utah's mining and agricultural sectors failed to sustain the levels enjoyed during the first two decades of the twentieth century. When the Great Depression struck the Utah economy it completely collapsed. Per capita income stood at only $300 in 1933, farm income fell from $69 million in 1929 to $30 million in 1932, and unemployment reached 36 percent in 1932–1933. Governor Dern called for an increase in the money supply and short-term federal aid for the unemployed. Relief was initially handled by county governments and private charity, of which the LDS Church was an important source, and in 1931 Dern appointed Sylvester Cannon of the LDS Church to chair the State Advisory Council on Unemployment. Victorious in 1932, the new Democratic governor, Henry Blood, called for a reasonable minimum wage, old age insurance, unemployment relief, and a state anti-injunction law to protect the rights of organized labor. Blood quickly turned to the federal government for assistance, seeking $57 million in building, sewage, and reclamation work from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration. A new burst of unionization took place in Carbon County, where the United Mine Workers achieved recognition in most mines. The Democratic Party was dominant in Utah throughout the 1930s, with state senator Herbert Maw as the party's radical champion. In 1936, Utahns voted 63.9 percent for President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, despite an LDS Church decision to publish a front-page editorial in the Church-operated Deseret News that some interpreted as a tacit endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Alfred Landon. Unhappy with the extensive federal intervention of the Roosevelt administration, the church in 1936 adopted its own welfare plan in an effort to divorce the Saints from secular government by providing them with church-sponsored work.

World War II and the Transformation of Utah

A great transformation of Utah came with World War II. In the mid-1930s, it was decided to upgrade Ogden Arsenal and build Hill Air Force Base to provide storage and training facilities for the military. This vastly expanded federal presence fueled dramatic in-migration as civilian defense jobs increased from 800 in 1940 to 28,800 in 1945. The government also built the Geneva Steel Plant near Provo for $214 million, although it was operated under private contract. Governor Herbert Maw proved particularly effective in lobbying the president for locating military sites in Utah. An activist for his state, he created the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development in 1941 to plan for the postwar economic world. The new demand for labor also led to an increased hiring of women workers, who constituted 37 percent of the labor force by 1944. Some 71,000 Utahns served in the armed forces and 3,600 were killed. By 1943, 52,000 people were working in defense installations and pressure for new housing was high, while food and clothing costs grew dramatically.

The Postwar Economy

Defense employment declined in the late 1940s but revived during the Korean War, when Hill Air Force Base was assigned responsibility for storing and repairing jets. Nuclear weapons were stored and tested in Utah and Nevada; atomic tests from 1951 to 1958 at the Nevada Test Site released radiation that affected residents of southwestern Utah. The new demand for uranium fueled Utah's economy and Moab, located near uranium ore deposits, became a boomtown in the mid-1950s. The new prosperity led to a conservative shift in politics, with Republicans making striking gains in 1946 and 1948. The Republican Party in Utah was racked by dissension, however, after Senator Arthur Watkins, one of its own, chaired the committee investigating censure of Joseph McCarthy. The resulting split between moderates and conservatives in Utah helped Democrat Frank Moss to defeat Watkins in 1958. In the same period, the appointment of Hugh Brown to the First Presidency in 1961 placed a liberal Democrat in an influential advisory position to the president of the LDS Church, while in secular politics democrat Calvin Rampton served as governor from 1965 to 1977.

The Minority Question

Minorities in Utah faced challenges in the 1950s and 1960s. The redistribution of tribal lands to the Paiute Indians by the federal government did not begin to compensate for their loss of access to federal health insurance, education, and employment programs, and many were forced to sell their new land because it generated so little income. The position of African Americans improved in the late 1940s, when many businesses and swimming pools were integrated, and again in the mid-1960s when Utah, along with the federal government, began to pass civil rights legislation. The LDS Church found itself obliged to reflect on its own ban, dating from the nineteenth century, against black males holding priestly office, and in 1978 President Spencer Kimball received a revelation that permitted African Americans to enter the priesthood.

Modern Utah

Since 1970 Utah has become a Republican stronghold, voting 54 percent to 33 percent for Bob Dole over Bill Clinton in 1996 and 67 percent to 26 percent for George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000. Democrats have not won a majority in the legislature since the 1974 election and have not held the governorship since 1985. A part of the reason for this shift has been the negative reaction to federal ownership of public lands. President Clinton's creation of the 1.7-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument helped defeat conservative Democratic U.S. representative Bill Orton that year. Even former Democratic governor Scott Matheson argued that the federal government had encroached too far on the rights of the states.

A new post-industrial economy in Utah has arisen, in which sixteen of the twenty-four largest employers are neither military nor absentee. The electronics industry includes Word Perfect, Novell, and Unisys, while manufacturing has shifted to electronic and aerospace components. Delta Airlines has made Salt Lake City a national hub, opening the Wasatch Front to business and tourism. During the 1990s, the state's population grew by 29.6 percent. Utah had a high school graduation rate of 82.1 percent in 1989 and was fifth in the nation in SAT scores in 1994. The state boasted good public health indicators and low rates of cancer. Cultural institutions include the Utah Symphony, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Ballet West, the Brigham Young University Folk Dance Ensemble, and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.