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
John Brown (Mormon pioneer) John Brown (Mormon pioneer) John Brown (1820–1897) was a leader among the Mormons in the southern United States and in the Mormon pioneer exodus to the West. He was also a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature. Brown was born in Sumner County, Tennessee. He was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Perry County, Illinois by George P. Dykes. He later served as a Mormon missionary in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. He headed a group of Latter-day Saints, mainly from Mississippi, who moved west in 1846. They did not realize that