Utah Centennial County History Series - Salt Lake County 1996

1 he Salt Lake Valley gradually recovered from the explosion on Arsenal Hill; yet at times, over the next two decades, the valley itself seemed a powder keg likely to explode from any careless spark.

Within Salt Lake County the struggle for power commenced, with statehood the pre-eminent goal of Mormons and federal control over divergent customs the requirement of the non-Mormons. Tension flared into sporadic violence with elections or news of repressive legislation. ~ ~ territorial prison in Sugarhouse processed By the mid- 1 8 8 0 the a new type of prisoner by the hundreds; these "cohabs"-people caught living in polygamy-ranged from the elite to the ordinary, the young to the elderly, and included women, though comparatively few. The apocalypse the Mormon settlers had feared since leaving Nauvoo did not come, yet federal persecution intensified against individuals as well as institutions so severely that it finally drew the sanction of leading non-Mormons.

Meanwhile the valley welcomed significant numbers of new residents, for the railroad had opened the mines like a cornucopia of