Great Salt Lake five counties: Box Elder, Davis, Tooele, Weber, and Salt Lake. Salt Lake City and its suburbs are located to the south-east and east of the lake, between the lake and the Wasatch Mountains, but land around the north and west shores are almost uninhabited. The Bonneville Salt Flats are to the west, and the Oquirrh and Stansbury Mountains rise to the south. The Great Salt Lake is fed by three major rivers and several minor streams. The three major rivers are each fed directly or indirectly from the Uinta Mountain range in northeastern Utah. The Bear River starts on the
Utah State Fair through the Salt Lake Valley of what is today Utah. With the high rugged Rocky Mountains on the east and miles of unfriendly, hot, dry desert and salt flats on the west, most of these early explorers and settlers found the climate and land an inhospitable environment in which to settle. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) had been established in 1830 by Joseph Smith in New York. Due to religious persecution, the group moved further and further west, yearning for a land to settle in which they could practice their religion. Following the murder of