A History of the Salt Lake City Business District T
he settlement of Salt Lake City is a unique chapter in the westward movement of the United States. The people who founded the city in 1847 were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More commonly known as Mormons, they did not come as individuals acting on their own, but as a well-organized, centrally-directed group, and they came for a religious purpose. Their goal was to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Salt Lake City was to be a religious Utopia in the wilderness. Mormons intended that it be not merely a city of man, but a City of God, a New Jerusalem, the Zion of the New World.1 Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew rapidly. By the time Mormons came to Utah, it had 50,000 members world-wide, 20,000 in the United States, and was one of the ten largest denominations in the country. Ninteenth-century Mormons believed that Smith was a prophet through whom God revealed himself, the Mormon church was the one true church, and its members were God's chosen people. As such, they were to "gather" out of a sinful world to a place called "Zion" where they would build the Kingdom of God on earth, dwell together in righteousness, and prepare for Christ's coming. In other words, the Mormon church did not aim just to teach certain doctrines or to get people together regularly to hear God's word. Its goal was the establishment of a perfect society, a model upon which all human society would ultimately be organized. Suspicion, hostility, and violence prevented the Mormons from establishing their perfect society in New York, Ohio, Missouri, or Illinois. After the shooting of
