The 45th state admitted to the US was Utah, on January 4th, 1896. Utah was named the "Beehive State" in 1849, as a symbol of perseverance and industry, from the name Deseret out of the Book of Mormon, which means "honeybee". The name "Utah" comes from the Native American "Ute" tribe known as the "people of the mountains". Also the word "yuttahih" is an Apache word for "one that is higher up". More than half of the people who live in Utah are Mormons, and over 2 million people belong to the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Another nickname for the state is "The Mormon State" for this reason. Utah has the youngest population of all the states in the union with an average age of 31 years old and 33% of the residents are under 18. There are five national parks in Utah - Zion, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Arches. Utah also has six national forests - Unita, Dixie, Fishlake, Wasatch-Cache, Ashley, and Manti-LaSal, and is the only state in the country with parts of a national forest in each of its counties. Every January, The Sundance Film Festival takes place in Park City, UT. The state capitol is Salt Lake City, the state bird is the Sea Gull, the state flower is the Sego Lily, and the state tree is the Quaking Aspen.
Twelve thousand years ago, the Desert Archaic Culture, which were the nomadic hunter-gatherers who made baskets and tools from natural resources, were the first peoples to live in Utah. The Fremont peoples emerged around 400AD and brought horticulture of maize-bean-squash, masonry, and more sophisticated pottery, clay work, and basketry. Four groups evolved out of the Shoshonean, Numic-speaking peoples of the Uto-Aztecan family. They were the Western Shoshone (Goshutes), Northern Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and the Ute people. These people were adaptive hunter-gatherers, constructors, and gardeners. In the 1700's, as the US was declaring independence from England, Spanish Explorers and Mexican traders came to Utah to document the people, the land, and the plant and animal life of the area. The first known European explorer to enter Utah was Juan Antonio de Rivera from New Spain. He discovered the Colorado River and claimed the whole area for Spain in 1765. Eighty years later, other mountain men roamed the area and practiced fur trapping. Jim Bridger was the first settler to report seeing the Great Salt Lake in 1824. Bridger established Fort Bridger in 1843, and the Latter-day Saints arrived and took it over. In 1847, the Latter-day Saint pioneers arrived in Salt Lake Valley while seeking religious freedom. Jedediah Smith found a pass through the Rocky Mountains called the "South Pass" that eventually became the Oregon Trail. Almost everyone living in the area were Indigenous, and Mexico owned the land from Colorado to California (with Utah included), even though there were not many Latinos living there. The US won the Mexican-American War in 1948 and gained Utah and most of the northern territory previously owned by Mexico. As soon as the land became part of the US, the leaders of the mormon church pushed to make Utah a state. In 1849, the church leaders wrote the constitution for the state, elected leaders to run it, and the House of Representatives would not give any seats away because it wasn't approved by Congress yet. In 1850, Congress formed the Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory. The church was still not satisfied because they needed to become a state to be able to elect their own government. Polygamy was practiced by the church and prevented Utah from gaining statehood. In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act that made polygamy a crime and in 1867, attempted to join the Union as a state once again, but Congress refused. The transcontinental railroad brought in many new immigrants that were not Mormon, so this caused tension between the two groups. Congress passed the Poland Act giving authorities more power to prosecute polygamists. In 1887, the Edmunds-Tucker Act passed allowing the government to seize the church's property, and it took away the women's right to vote. A new constitution was written, and in 1894, Congress passed the Enabling Act which supported Utah in achieving statehood by banning polygamy. In 1895, non-Mormon communities and delegates from the church met to write a new constitution. Elections were held to ratify the state constitution and elect leaders. Finally, on January 4th, 1896, President Grover Cleveland proclaimed Utah was a state.
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