Utah , state, United States: Spanish Exploration and Possession

Recent anthropological studies have produced evidence that the Utah area was inhabited as early as c.9,000 b.c. Although some Coronado's men under García López de Cárdenas may have entered S Utah in 1540, the first definite penetration by Europeans did not occur until 1776, when the Spanish missionaries Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez opened the route for the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and Utah Lake. By the Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, the large area of which Utah was a part was officially recognized as a Spanish possession (it passed to the United States in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican War).

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Developments
• Statehood and the End of Isolation
• Friction with Native Americans and the U.S. Government
• Mormon Settlement and Territorial Status
• Mountain Men and Wagon Trains
• Spanish Exploration and Possession
• Government and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

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