at @cspanhistory. reason --ok at our our recent visit to provo, utah. >> provo has a difficult early story. narrative isig coming into this place and making it work even though earlier american and even british and other explorers never chose to settle here. this was seen as a difficult place to live and not a desirable patch of land. that was part of the logic for

mormons taking it. thought it could be isolated from other mac and settlers so they wouldn't run -- other american settlers so they wouldn't run into the ideas of the east. only does the gold rush bring 30,000 non-mormons through utah in the first three years of settlement, first five years of settlement, but 20,000 or so , theseamericans here stories became as difficult as the ones the mormons had experienced before. misunderstanding, cultural alienation, violent conflict. case, native americans are pushed out of their historical homeland. it becomes a difficult story to tell. human beings have been here for a very long time.

provo wins -- when the first anglo-american settlers arrived with the intent to stay in 1849, there were already lots of people here. native americans called this area home for hundreds, even thousands of years. the site of the largest concentration of native americans in what is now utah, .n fact the tip and get band of the utes were not far from where we are. they made their home here because of the plentiful resources with regard to both the game in the mountains and canyons and the trout and fish ast they were able to fish the provo river meets what is now called utah lake. so they had had a major population center here.

one the latter day saints arrives in 1847, they chose the salt lake valley to our ninth. a self-selecting group of latter-day saints came to settle in provo in 80 put nine. the settlement of provo -- in 1849. the idea was hardly religious, but partly necessitated by the landscape as well. language about this was religious, the idea came about .rom their own tests -- texts

it was not always easy to come by. mostly along the creeks and of largeo in terms populations, this was a pressing , so other communities followed a kind of pattern, and that is, located near a canyon, had the benefit of its water and easy access to timber, communities radiating outward all the way up into southern idaho, eventually all the way down to california. one of the and points of the

corridor. it is a kind of book of mormon belt that really does stretch from southern idaho utah, into southern california. is part of the story, the , sole satellite communities -- one of-- the idea brigham young's ideas was this was a way to get european converts eventually the utah safely. they could maybe come by way of maybe san diego. that eventually changed with the transcontinental railroad. they got a cheaper and safer way to get mormon converts from europe. originally yet it was this string of settlements that would form a kind of mormon corridor. provo was one of those early satellite communities. some of the architecture that remains from the 19th century has a distinctly mormon feel to

it. most prominently now is the provo city center temple, which for years was the provo tabernacle. in 2010 the interior was destroyed by a fire. less than a year later the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints announced they would repurpose as a temple, the most sacred of the expressions of architecture for latter-day saints. it is now one of the church's 150 working temples. before that it had been a cultural, ecclesiastical center for community. we might call it a sacred geography for early mormon settlement. that is that the center of town at a church building. this is true for provo as well. the city center temple on the side of the tabernacle which is

on the side of an earlier tabernacle, that was all the center of the community. that center space early latter-day saints saw this biblical, maybe evoking a kind of new jerusalem idea. it's also very american. puritan communities have the same kind of centrality of the church. early mormon settlements in utah, it's not unusual to find either a standing tabernacle war where one used to be at the center of town. it's a pretty telling symbol about the way those early settlers envisioned their community. the church literally was the center. latter day saints have a strong educational ethic very early on. when they established their community in western illinois they got a charter from the state to establish a university in the city.

indicative of their yearning for education that would be in some waste secular but in some ways to be able to keep their own children and their own faith. education always have this kind of both secular and spiritual component. when mormons come the utah that educational ethic comes with them. this was the site of one of the major educational institutions in the intermountain west in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. the provo city library is the current title, but it long served as the brigham young academy. the beginnings of the academy are the result of a couple of brothers named dusenberry. they established a private school in provo. it struggled financially. eventually brigham young himself was involved in the recharge

rate of that school in the mid-1870's. the academy bore his name as a result. he had a strong hand in establishing its charter, its mission, and he continued to struggle. did that in a building that far from here and eventually burned down. this is the result. this beautiful building. the 1890's result of trying to reestablish the academy again. eventually this campus moves a little bit north of here in the early 20th century and becomes eventually brigham young university once it begins granting a selected number of doctorate degrees. eventually it is kind of private academy financial structures change in the church itself takes over the university. it becomes a private university that is directed by an funded by

the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. it is in a way it reflects the early vision of brigham young. it has a strong secular component, secular learning, but it maintains a mormon identity and a kind of religious mission as well. in a way even the modern brigham young university reflects this early instinct of brigham young who charted it back in 1875. provo's identity is linked to educational institutions. there is no question about that. the fact that 30,000 plus students coming through the institution now, it is unquestionably shaped the way provo has developed over time. part of this is in terms of

demographics as well. the county we are in, utah county, over 80% latter-day saints. the county just to the north, salt lake county, nowhere near that. salt lake city is pretty even between latter-day saints and non-latter-day saints. utah as a state somewhere in the mid 60 percentile in terms of its mormon population. this is an unusually dense mormon demographic center, both inside and outside the kind of provo area. this is referred to as happy

valley. it is lovingly so by dormancy know that this is a very culturally mormon place. and maybe a little bit more critically by folks who come and can't for the life of them find a bar or have a difficult time finding that cup of coffee in the morning. happy valley to them has a little bit different feel to them. it is definitely what makes provo provo. >> all weekend, american history tv is featuring provo, utah. c-span cities towards staff recently visited many sites showcasing the city's history. it is located approximately 40 miles south of salt lake city utah lake, the largest freshwater lake in the state. learn more about provo all weekend here on american history tv. but i you are looking at a time last video at the library of congress.