This was the nucleus of what is now known as the flourishing
city of Salt Lake. These pioneers came across the vast plains, over the
desolate mountains and entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake through
Emigration Canon. Their first view of the locality was from the mouth of
the canon which is at an elevation of seven hundred feet above the city,
and from this eminence the clearness of the atmosphere enabled them to
see mountain ranges ninety miles distant.
The wide valley, the broad expanse of the lake with its mountainous
islands, miles in extent, and the encircling ranges, formed an
amphitheatre of unexampled grandeur and rugged beauty. The valley itself
at that time was a vast desert without tree or shrub, nothing but the
wild sage-brush and the white alkali soil could be seen, if we except
the scrub-oaks and lebanon cedars that covered the mountain sides and
the emerald colored waters of the lake. Utah was then Mexican Territory,
and this fact, as much perhaps as any other, determined Brigham Young to
settle there.
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