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Show 13 settled to provide fish to supplement beef in the early Utah pioneer diet. Each area to which colonists were directed was considered to be important to church and territorial interests for some reason. 37 The second type of settlement followed a pattern of initial private exploration and development. If an area had been opened by independent or individual efforts and proved able to support a settlement, then central church leaders directed more saints to the region or area to colonize it. The town of American Fork, first known as Lake City, was originally established by ranchers. Upon seeing that settlement was feasible, the church leaders directed settlers to American Fork to ensure that the church's interests ( that of controlling the region's development) were represented and protected. 38 Ogden was one of the first areas of secondary settlement. Early explorers reported that it had an excellent potential for settlement They also reported that mountainman Miles Goodyear had a ranch in the area. Private ( independently acting) settlers traveled to the area and purchased the rights to the area from Goodyear and established the beginnings of a settlement. 39 To secure the area and maintain their independence as a group, Mormon officials then encouraged colonists to settle there. Population in the area increased from that time on. In 1849 people were directed to the present- day Utah County area. By 1851 American Fork, Lehi, Payson, Pleasant Grove, and Springville were settled. In 1849 the Sanpete area was settled, and in 1850 settlers were directed to Iron County. By 1850 fifty settlements had been started in the Great Basin area, thirty- six of which were located along the western edge of the Wasatch mountain range. 40 This expansion continued so that by 1890 more than 400 towns from Canada to Mexico and from the Salt Lake area to California had been established by Mormon colonization efforts. 41 So successful was this policy of seeking out all places of potential settlement that in 1888 the authors of the Report of the Utah Commission wrote " that the Mormons ' have not only settled but have filled all of tillable Utah.'" The commission continued: 42 . *. those who hold the valleys and appropriate and own the waters capable of use for irrigation, own and hold Utah, and nature has fortified their position more strongly than it could be done by any Chinese Wall or artificial defense. 37 Leonard J. Arlington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp 84- 95. \ Vayne L. Wahlquist, " Settlement Process in the Mormon Core Area, 1847- 1890," ( Thesis, University of Nebraska, Department of Geography, Lincoln, Nebraska 1974). Leonard J. Arlington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp 47- 48. 40Ibid., p 88. 42Wffliam Mulder, Homeward to Zion: The Mormon Migration from Scandinavia ( University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1957), p 191. Partially quoting the Utah Commission to the Secretary of the Interior, Report of the Utah Commission to the Secretary of the Interior, September 24, 1888 ( Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office, 1888), p. 16. |