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Show Too lee' may be OK for Tooele By QUIG NIELSEN In the early 1 980' s when America's most trusted newscaster, Walter Cronkite, pronounced the name of a western Utah community "Too lee," maybe he didn't know iow right he was. Title is a Spanish word for water-flag, water-flag, which grew abundantly near the shores of the Great Salt Lake. A clerk, in first writing the name,, spelled it "Tooele," and so it has been. Capt. Bonneville's map of his expedition of 1837 shows the inscription in-scription "Too-el-i-can Indians, place in a territory adjoining Shoshone country far to the nor- thwest of what is known today as Tooele Valley." The name, Tooele, also may have ;ome from the Gosiute Indian chief, Iuilla. Another story credits a Scotsman for the name. A Tooele native claims that Brigham Young and his Scottish friend visited the area looking for a settlement site in 1 848. After climbing climb-ing atop a huge rock to get a good look of the surrounding landscape, the old Scotsman declared, ' 'too hilly, hil-ly, too hilly." Tooele Valley was a favorite rendezvous for the Indians, and most of the early trappers and explorers ex-plorers knew the valley well. In 1846 the Donner party passed through Tooele valley on their way to California. In 1849 the pioneer settlers located about a mile southwest of the present site of Tooele City, which is 12 miles from the Great Salt Lake. During the summer and fall of 1850 many of the settlers were afraid they would be crowded out by the lack of water. At that time the best judges put the extreme limit of land that could be watered at 300 acres. They estimated that from eight to 15 families would be all who could be supported by the water supply. Either the estimate was erroneous or the amount of water in Settlement Creek increased dramatically. dra-matically. Before the end of 1850 more than 20 families were in the new settlement, and it has continued to grow. Tooele City's population is now well over 15,000. Source: Hunter, "Brigham Young, the Colonizer; Utah American Guide Series; Peter J. Lacey interview. (Quig Nielsen is an information officer for the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City.) |