History of Salt Lake City the Salt Lake Valley. At the time of its founding there were no Indians present in the Salt Lake valley. The first two in this company to enter the Salt Lake valley were Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow. These members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("LDS Church") sought to establish an autonomous religious community and were the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the area now known as Utah. Thousands of Mormon pioneers would arrive in Salt Lake in the coming months and years. Brigham Young led the Saints west after the death
Downtown Salt Lake City crowd, many of the Main Street businesses were saloons, earning the street the nickname "Whiskey Street". For many years, there existed a political and cultural divide in Salt Lake City. Mormons would mostly shop and congregate around the Salt Lake Temple, the Gardens at Temple Square and ZCMI on the north-end of Main Street, and those who were not members of the church, who were mostly prospectors in the early days, would stay south of the predominantly Mormon area. Originally, the business district extended along the west side of Main between South Temple and 100 South. By the 1880s, the