Salt Lake County, Utah Utah Territory after traveling what settlers later called Emigration Canyon. Brigham Young, their leader, declared "This is the place" after seeing the valley. Compared to eastern regions, it seemed arid and unpromising to some of the migrants. Settlers used extensive irrigation to develop agriculture and the flourishing, self-sufficient city, known then as Great Salt Lake City. Thousands of Mormons joined them in the next several decades. The county was officially organized on January 31, 1850, with slightly more than 11,000 residents recorded. Mormon settlements were scattered across the valley and beyond. They relocated the territorial capital to Great Salt Lake
Little Cottonwood Creek (Salt Lake County, Utah) Little Cottonwood Creek (Salt Lake County, Utah) Little Cottonwood Creek is one of the principal streams entering Salt Lake Valley from the east rises near the summit of the Wasatch Mountains a short distance south of the ski resort town of Alta and flows in a westerly direction through Little Cottonwood Canyon until it emerges into Salt Lake Valley about eleven miles from its source thence its course is north westerly through Sandy, Midvale and Murray, Utah until it empties into the Jordan River about six miles south of Salt Lake City. Its whole length is nearly twenty seven miles.