Fillmore, UtahIn an attempt to curry favor with the President of the United States in the 1850's towards the goal of obtaining statehood, the Mormon leadership of the Utah territory drew up the boundaries of a very large county in the middle of uninhabited desert country and named it in honor of then current president Millard Fillmore. They used his first name for the county, Millard, and his last name as the county seat, Fillmore.
Old Territorial Capitol Building in Fillmore
Not content with that gesture alone they then decided to place the territorial capital in Fillmore because it was in the very geographic center of Utah. Both gestures went largely unnoticed by President Fillmore and the capital was soon restored to Salt Lake City because no one in the legislature was willing to travel to this bleak windswept corner of nowhere. Utah did not become a state until 1896, after the renouncing of polygamy by the LDS church.
Buckethead performing at Egos on State Street
I stayed with a person who lives in the Avenues section of Salt Lake City, which is located on the hilly benches above downtown. I was told it was originally where the Catholics decided to build to get away from the Mormons below in the valley. It contains one of the most amazing collections of vintage housing stock I have ever seen in the United States, with a variety of architectural styles and sizes spanning the past 150 years.
Gorgeous Prairie style home on 11th Ave.
Mormon Temple from the bluffs above City Creek
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