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Show UTAH TO HiT ONE MILLION CITIZENS AFTER 117 YEARS Allthough Indians had lived in the canyonlands and valleys of present-day Utah ever since the dawn of prehistory, it was not till 1844 that trapper Miles Goodyear built the first white trading post west of the Wasatch Was-atch at the site of Ogden. Ealier, of course, Fathers Escal-ante Escal-ante and Domingueuz explored the Utah Lake region in 1776, the year of America's war for Independence. Those other seekers after freedom, the fur trappers, held their rendezvous In the Green River country almost annually for a dozen years beginning in 1825. Of course it was not until 1947, when the Mormon pioneers pio-neers worked their way thru the Wasatch along a path hewed hew-ed by the ill-fated Donner Party, Par-ty, that permanent white settlement set-tlement of the Utah territory became a reality. Thus it has taken fully 117 years from July, 1847 until Sept. 24, 1964 for Utah to gain its one-millionth inhabitant. For, according t o the best statistics available, on the 24th day of Sept. of this year, a new comer will come across the Wasatch, bent on settling here in the Beehive state. This present-day pioneer may arrive by jet plane at a 600 mph clip. He may come by streamliner thru those same canyons once pierced by wagon wag-on trains. Chances are he and his family will arrive in a sedan se-dan or station wagon, traveling broad, smoothly paved highways high-ways that have replaced the dugways of bygone years. By all available calculations Utah's "Mr. Million" will be coming to seek or hold down a job in business or industry in contrast to those earlier pioneers pi-oneers who came to wrest a living from the soil. Well, as the saying goes, "the first 100 years were the hardest." In this case the first 117 years were hard indeed in reaching that magic one million mil-lion figure on the Utah population popu-lation tote-board. The next million will doubtless come more quickly, here in valleys blessed by a hard-won supply of water, abundant power, our scenic wonders, a sturdy people peo-ple and faith. |
