2007-03-04 04:31:21 · 6 answers · asked by § gαввαηα § 5 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
When the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley it was a desolate deseert. With so many more lush places to settle, nobody else wanted the Salt Lake Valley. So the Mormon's were undisturbed by interlopers for a long time.
During that time, they worked very hard to bring irrigation to the valley and make it fruitful for crops. As there were many Mormon pioneers, lots of them new British immigrants, they had plenty of backs for the hardwork it took to turn the Salt Lake into a livable land.
Then there were several mining booms and the first transcontinental railway was finished in north salt lake in 1869.
There is a reason Salt Lake was called the Crossroads of the West.
Obelix - Don't be ignorant.
There is no PROOF of the heads of the LDS church ever supporting or condoning any attacks on non-Mormons in the state. There were some Mormons and local church leaders that committed such attrocities as the Mountain Meadow Massacre, but they were in the minority and did not have the support of the church.
Secondly, the Great Salt Lake has LESS salinity now, then it originally did. Once upon a time, the salinity was so high that people bobbed on the surface without any effort, in fact it took lots of effort to be able to sink (thus the popularity of Saltair in the early 1900's). Now you actually sink without much trouble. Though the salinity of the lake has always been quite variable, ranging from 5 to 27%. While salt is added every year by waterways that end in the lake, the majority of the salt was left by Lake Bonneville and a good portion of it has been being removed from the lake for commerce. The lake has also been shrinking since the days of Lake Bonneville, which helps to keep the salinity high, but is not caused by humans. It is a natural phenomenon that has been going since long before anyone settled into the valley.
2007-03-04 04:44:47 · answer #1 · answered by Raising6Ducklings! 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Utah is quite beautiful and once the Mormons brought irrigation in to the valley, it wasn't exactly a hardship surviving there.
The reason the Mormons got to claim such good land is because it lay south of the major trails and not many people other than Mormons went that direction. Other people were bent on getting to California or Oregon. The empty places in between were simply what you had to survive.
2007-03-04 04:52:25 · answer #2 · answered by loryntoo 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I met a couple Mormon families and I just want to say they are great people with wonderful family values (I am not talking about plurial marriage which is not accepted by the Mormon Church).
They are Christians and have a lot of similar believes as the Catholics do.
2007-03-04 04:42:58 · answer #3 · answered by Valerie v 3 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Because they were the salt of the earth.
2007-03-04 04:47:23 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The easy answer is that they killed anyone who came near them.
The harder one is that Salt Lake was not so salty as it became with too many people living around it.
2007-03-04 04:43:44 · answer #5 · answered by obelix 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋
They were far away from everyone else that no one could complain about them the way they did in New York and Missouri.
They were also able to control who moved into the area and prevent people from taking over from them.
They sort of declared "dibs" and before anyone else cared, they had organized themselves and made it very hard for anyone to supplant them.
2007-03-04 04:36:41 · answer #6 · answered by Monc 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋