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
Utah War or west. Johnston's Army settled in Camp Floyd, in a valley 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and separated from Provo (the second-largest city in the territory) by Utah Lake and a small range of mountains. This remote location, neighbor only to a few farms and ranches, was chosen to decrease friction between the troops and the Mormons. The Army and the Mormons continued in a fragile co-existence until the troops left in 1861 when called back east for service in the American Civil War. Although Eastern editors continued to condemn the Mormons' religious beliefs and practices, they praised