The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Earth and Mineral Sciences THE WASP IN THE BEEHIVE: NON-MORMON PRESENCE IN 1880S UTAH A Thesis in Geography by Samuel A. Smith c 2008 Samuel A. Smith Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science August 2008 The thesis of Samuel A. Smith was read and approved1 by the following: Deryck W. Holdsworth Professor of Geography Thesis Adviser Roger Downs Professor of Geography Karl Zimmerer Professor of Geography Head of the Department of Geography 1. Signatures on file in the Graduate School. iii Abstract Recent studies have reconsidered the Mormon Culture Region in light of its 1880{1920 transition to American political and economic norms. While these studies emphasize conflicts between the Mormon establishment and the non-Mormon federal government, Mormon/non-Mormon relations within Utah have received little direct attention. Based on religious affiliations recorded in the 1880 federal census of Utah Territory, this study uses historical GIS to visualize the composition of Utah's \Mormon" and \non-Mormon" towns. The results highlight the extensive presence of religious minorities in Utah's settlements. Case studies of farm villages, mining camps, and urban neighborhoods probe the social and economic contexts of non-Mormon presence in Utah. These studies, based on Sanborn maps and city directories, explore the geographical mosaic of Mormon and non-Mormon residence and business activity. These variegated patterns, often absent from historical accounts of the region, enable localized analyses of the ensuing decades of cultural conflict, transformation and assimilation. Keywords: Mormons, non-Mormons, Mormon Culture Region, Utah, 1880 Cen- sus, historical demography. iv Table of Contents List of Tables :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: vi List of Figures ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: vii Acknowledgments ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ix Chapter 1. Utah on the Eve of Transformation ::::::::::::::::::: 1 1.1 The End of Utah's Isolation . 1 1.2 Literature Review . 8 1.2.1 Meinig's \Mormon Culture Region:" A Legacy of Differentiation 9 1.2.2 Beyond the Western Frontier . 16 1.2.3 New Historical Geographies of Utah . 19 1.3 Populations and Presences in a (not entirely) Mormon Culture Region 22 Chapter 2. Marginalia and Centrality: The 1880 Census as an Analytical Portal :::::::::::::::: 27 2.1 The 1880 Census: A Neglected Historical Record . 29 2.2 Frameworks for Census Data Analysis . 44 2.2.1 Data Transcription and Standardization . 44 2.2.2 Geovisual Analysis and Historical Geography . 49 2.2.3 The GeoViz Toolkit . 53 2.3 Census Visualization and Analysis . 57 2.3.1 County Level Data: Broad Religious Trends . 58 2.3.2 Precinct-Level Data: A Closer View . 65 2.3.3 Tracing Variation in the Mormon Domain . 72 2.4 Patterns of non-Mormon Presence in Utah . 76 Chapter 3. Salt Lake City: The Metropolitan Forge :::::::::::::::: 80 3.1 Salt Lake City as Mormon-Gentile Meeting-Point . 80 3.2 A Townscape in Transition . 88 3.2.1 Building the City of Zion . 88 3.2.2 Functional Differentiation and Urban Form . 95 3.3 Economic Activity in Salt Lake: Parallel Worlds . 119 3.4 Granular Integration: Mormon and Gentile Households in Salt Lake's Thirteenth Ward . 134 Chapter 4. Mormons and Non-Mormons in Utah's Hinterland :::::::::: 152 4.1 A Continuum of Occupancy . 152 4.2 Sanpete County: Utah's Mormon Heartland . 154 4.2.1 Mormon Settlement Hierarchies . 157 4.2.2 The Mormon Farm Village Landscape . 163 v 4.2.3 Economic Activity and Place Hierarchy in Central Utah . 168 4.2.4 Patterns of Non-Mormon Presence in Sanpete County . 179 4.3 Park City: Mormons in a Mining Town . 188 4.3.1 Park City within Gentile Utah . 189 4.3.2 Morphologies of Mining and Capital . 197 4.3.3 Park City's Working Worlds . 204 4.3.4 The Mormon Place in Park City . 210 Chapter 5. Conclusions :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 215 5.1 Utah's Unfolding Transformation . 216 5.2 Reconciling Analytical Frames . 220 5.3 Possibilities for Future Research . 227 Bibliography :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 233 vi List of Tables 2.1 Comparison of three analyses of Utah's religious composition in 1880. 44 2.2 Religious composition of Utah's counties. 60 4.1 Religious composition of selected non-agricultural occupations in Mount Pleasant, Utah. 184 vii List of Figures 1.1 Reductions in the area of \Deseret" and Utah Territory, 1847{1868. 4 1.2 Meinig's frame of \contiguous colonizations" in Mormon settlement. 11 1.3 Meinig's \Gentile Intrusions" in the Intermountain West. 12 1.4 \Mormonland" in 1890. 26 2.1 Representative page from the 1880 census manuscript schedules . 31 2.2 Marginal notations in the census schedules indicate individuals' religions. 33 2.3 Utah's 1880 county boundaries. 46 2.4 The 213 precincts recorded in the 1880 census. 47 2.5 The four geovisual methods used in this analysis. 56 2.6 Bivariate map of total population and Mormon percentage by county. 59 2.7 Parallel coordinate plot of religious affiliation in Utah's counties. 62 2.8 County level star plots of religious affiliation. 64 2.9 Parallel coordinate plot of precincts in Utah Territory. 68 2.10 Star plots for Utah's 213 precincts. 71 2.11 Parallel coordinate plot of religious composition of Mormon majority precincts. 75 3.1 Salt Lake City's railroad connections. 83 3.2 Boundaries and religious compositions of Salt Lake City's 21 wards. 87 3.3 Compiled map of the four pioneer plats of Salt Lake City. 92 3.4 Overview map of Salt Lake City in the 1880s. 97 3.5 Sanborn map of Block 47, a residential block on Salt Lake's East Side. 99 3.6 Street view of Salt Lake's Main Street business district. 102 3.7 Sanborn map of Block 69, in Salt Lake City's business district. 103 3.8 The Wasatch Building was a center of Gentile business in Salt Lake. 105 3.9 Figure ground of two of the densest blocks of the transition zone. 107 3.10 Sanborn map of the heavily subdivided Block 70. 108 3.11 Sanborn map of Block 71, in Salt Lake's transition zone. 110 3.12 Aerial photograph of Salt Lake's transition zone. 111 3.13 Sanborn map of Block 79, adjacent to Salt Lake's railroad depot. 114 3.14 Functional clusters in Salt Lake City. 117 3.15 Cartogram of downtown Salt Lake's nine business streets. 123 3.16 The thirty-one businesses that purchased multi-line advertisements in the Pacific Coast Directory. 127 3.17 Mormon-owned businesses in central Salt Lake City. 132 3.18 Religous composition of the nine blocks of Salt Lake's Thirteenth Ward. 139 4.1 Manti in 1887, with its temple in the background. 156 4.2 Mormon settlements in the San Pitch Valley. 160 4.3 Populations and religious compositions of Sanpete County's 15 towns. 162 4.4 The northern half of Ephraim, surrounded by agricultural outlots. 165 viii 4.5 Manti's Mormon cooperative store. 167 4.6 Sanborn map of central Manti. 169 4.7 Typical land use on a Mormon village lot. 170 4.8 Schematic map of the professions of adult male Gentiles in Sanpete County. 186 4.9 Location of Park City. 193 4.10 1891 Aerial view of Park City. 195 4.11 Overview map of Park City. 198 4.12 Sanborn map of Lower Main Street in Park City. 200 4.13 Sanborn map of Park City's business district and Chinatown. 202 ix Acknowledgments In preparing this thesis, I have amassed debts of gratitude to numerous people. Deryck Holdsworth's lectures illustrated the utility of census records in historical geog- raphy, leading me to the long-ignored census notations at the core of this study. The staff of the Utah State Historical Society's research center in Salt Lake were unfailingly helpful through a long summer of data transcription|a summer which would have been much longer had it not been for Amy Glasmeier's help in locating partial transcriptions of the census schedules. The geovisual analysis in Chapter 2 would not have been possible without the assistance of Frank Hardisty at Penn State's GeoVISTA Center, who generously shared his work-in-progress and fixed bugs as I encountered them. Thanks also to the LDS Church History and Family History Libraries, whose archives extend well beyond their Mormon emphasis. I am deeply indebted to my masters committee for their patience as I worked to phrase and refine the central themes of this thesis. Sue Friedman's probing questions were especially helpful. Deryck Holdsworth saw me through numerous cycles of writing and revision, providing quick and helpful critiques and an always-open door even as he juggled the workload of numerous graduate students. Roger Downs left an initial draft of the thesis bleeding blue ink, but showed me questions I had not thought to ask, challenging me to strengthen my argument in answering them. I hope I have answered that challenge. x I am similarly grateful to the teachers, colleagues, and friends who offered open doors and open ears during an often-difficult writing process. My fellow graduate students, especially Jeremy Fisher, Matt Hartzell, and Wes Stroh, were true friends, offering commiseration and sound advice. Michael Conzen offered a much-appreciated vote of confidence during an all-too-brief encounter at the Association of American Geographers' Annual Meeting in Boston. Finally, thanks to my parents, not only for their numerous phone calls as I struggled to refine outlines and chapters, but for sparking my geographic curiosity many years ago, as I looked out from the back seat at the landscapes of the Intermountain West.