When I was aged 14,my mother read a book called a Marvelous Work and a Wonder by author LeGrand Richards.The books author claimed congress declared Utah an unihabitable waste land.

Richards claimed in the book Utah would have remained that way if mormons never colonized it.

However the railroad was established in Utah in 1879 connecting the whole east and west of the country.

So what would have happened otherwise?

The Sonora Desert didn't have much to offer, but it got developed.

It would still be lovey

But there would be more outdoorsfolk

The roads may be narrower

Ken Sander's rare and Used Books probably wouldn't be there just the same.

The Spynx of Joseph Smith - and Gil Gal Gardens - wouldn't be there.

There may be a few more brewerys. Thats about it...

And POT would be legal, like most of it's neighbors

What letter would be on that mountain at the east end of Provo?

Perhaps H for Happy
Without mormonism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2021 06:38PM by Tevai.

Hopefuly 'T' for Timpanogos which there would be a lot more of today if there hadn't been so many Mormons back then.

says that there would be more areas that were treated as recreational areas or would have been treated with the respect of being beautiful like Cache Valley. The place in Colorado where they filmed "The Shining"--oh, is it Estes Park? It just came to me. He said it would be more like that area than as it is. He takes note that the houses aren't built to enjoy the views unless it is a view of the temple.

Utah is an "outdoor temple" and yet the mormons have never given it the respect it deserved. They are fighting right now over starting to build homes in Sardine Canyon where Sherwood Hills was.

Well, no. That part of MWW about "Congress" (p. 233) was discussing the Oregon Territory (encompassing what is now Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, but *not* Utah), where a senator from South Carolina bloviated in 1843, "Why, sir, of what use will this be for agricultural purposes? I would not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish to God we did not own it."

https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=012/llcg012.db&recNum=215

Since the US didn't own the Utah area until 1848 as Mexican War spoils, the senator couldn't have possibly been referring to any part of Utah.

Further, Richards didn't write that Utah would have remained an uninhabitable wasteland. Instead, he quoted the bogus JS prophecy about the church being driven to the Rocky Mountains, then disingenuously conflated Oregon and Utah (p. 234):

"Since the Lord could make such a worthless land as described by [the senator] to 'blossom as a rose,' and the Saints could 'become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains,' surely these are even greater accomplishments than when the Lord parted the Red Sea and led Israel of old through on dry land."

See? The church settling Utah is more miraculous than Moses parting the Red Sea!

LeGrand Richards was a simple-minded fool, but there's no reason to misquote or misrepresent him. His actual words are enough to discredit him.

My mother told me LeGrand Richards said Utah would have been a wastele land without Mormons.

So what? Your mother also told you the church is true.

Once again, Richards was the burned-out bulb in a Celestial Room chandelier. It really doesn't matter what he said.

Transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 (May 10)

Mormons like to take credit for many things. I remember at a youth conference years ago the teacher told the class that the patent office was just about to be shut down in the U.S. because nothing else could possibly be invented. Then Joseph Smith had his vision and the heavens were opened. Thanks to Joseph Smith people started inventing things again and the U.S. patent office reopened.

The way Mormons talk about their pioneer heritage you'd think they the were the first to venture out west. But wagon trains were heading out west on the Oregon Trail ten years before the Mormons headed west. And three years before the Mormons headed west a wagon train with 1,000 people made the journey to Oregon on the Oregon trail. The westward migration started long before the Mormons pushed their handcarts across the plains.

The Mormons followed existing pioneer trails on their westward journey, including the Oregon Trail most of the way, yet they talk about their trek like they were the very first to make the journey and blazed a new trail the entire way.

I think the Mormons did establish a nice city in Utah. Who knows what Utah would be like today without the Mormons. Colorado did okay without Mormons. Same with Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico and California.

Some people think that Salt Lake City is a nice place to live but it is very polluted. Mormons have not been good stewards of the land. They couldn't care less about the environment. I don't think taking care of the planet has ever been preached in general conference.

I hated the winter inversions they had along the Wasatch front. The only place I’ve experienced worse air quality is China.

heartbroken Wrote:
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> Mormons like to take credit for many things. I
> remember at a youth conference years ago the
> teacher told the class that the patent office was
> just about to be shut down in the U.S. because
> nothing else could possibly be invented. Then
> Joseph Smith had his vision and the heavens were
> opened. Thanks to Joseph Smith people started
> inventing things again and the U.S. patent office
> reopened.

I've never heard that particular faith-promoting rumor before. What a ridiculous load, but I'm sure the faithful eat it up.

I did attend a youth conference once where a GA, in the midst of bloviating about how how "special" we were, told us all that the Second Coming had started in 1820 with the First Vision and we were in the midst of it RIGHT NOW and were thus super-chosen. I wondered what the hell was taking Jesus so long and why he couldn't just get on with it.

Utah was the pawnshop of the West during the California/Oregon trail migration. Pioneers coming through had to dump their possessions for the trip across Nevada and over the Sierra Nevada for pennies on the dollar. Utah made out like bandits on furniture and family luxury possessions sold off here.

I'd think Utah would have gotten a major mining exploitation hit in the 1860s like Nevada and had all kinds of abandoned ghost towns with gaping holes all over from the crude mining methods. With no Mormon hierarchy in place to hold off get-rich-quick in and out development (human gophers digging, digging...) for establishing agriculture, it probably would have gone much like Reno for a rail stop.

The intercontinental railroads seeded the West with farmers to provide a cash economy hauling traffic East, and then ruthlessly exploited them about the "problem of rates," meaning gouging the locals and leaving them just enough to stay in business. The Southern Pacific did that as long as the company had a monopoly on transportation in California's central valley until the AT&SF built in from the south.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2021 02:57AM by snagglepuss.

It probably would be like Wyoming.

They may have crazy roads like so many other places in the country. I miss how easy it was to get around utah. The number/grid system is so much better.

number grid system?

It might have been useful before the city (and county) boundaries became smugged up close to each other; to be most effective, they must be at least county-wide (and people deal effectively with county boundaries).

King County has a county wide system, but a couple of cities (Renton might be the most obvious) stick to their pre-existing street names.

also there are the developers who insist on Named streets & Avenues that challenge the consistency of the scheme.

Mexico

schrodingerscat Wrote:
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> Mexico


You mean Mexo-America?

Yes, Northern Mexico.
Let’s give it back to them.
They can have it for free if they take Texas back too.
And we’ll pay them $1 million to take Florida too!

It seemed to be part of the "scriptures" the way they acted about it back when I was a teenager.

The Utah territory was never an uninhabitable waste land. The Native Americans were one with the place and doing very nicely as they were part of nature.

Mormons weren't the only pioneers and settlers. Utah would have been like most other states---not a theocracy.

Done & Done Wrote:
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> The Utah territory was never an uninhabitable
> waste land. The Native Americans were one with
> the place and doing very nicely . . .

Thank you for saying that. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to correct the assumption underlying the thread.

And, the Baker-Francher party would have made it to California with their gold in tact and got to raise their own children.

A lot less Republican!!!!

In short, better.