Education in Salt Lake City Education in Salt Lake City Education has always been a priority in the Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1847 pioneer Jane Dillworth held the first classes in her tent for the children of the first Mormon families. By 1850 many schools had already sprung up around the valley, and there were plans for a school attached to every wardhouse. In 1851 the territorial legislature passed the first public school law creating the office of the superintendent of schools. Many large Mormon families, such as Brigham Young's, had their own schools, known as "family schools". In the last part of the
History of Salt Lake City the Great Salt Lake Valley a year before the Mormon pioneers. This group had spent weeks traversing difficult terrain and brush, cutting a road through the Wasatch Mountains, coming through Emigration canyon into the Salt Lake Valley on August 12, 1846. This same path would be used by the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers, and for many years after that by those following them to Salt Lake. On July 24, 1847 143 men, three women and two children founded Great Salt Lake City several miles to the east of the Great Salt Lake, nestled in the northern most reaches of