Why did the settlers settle where they did in the US?

I posted in another thread

—from my fictionalized account of my real ancestors.

Certainly you meant east, not west? Salt Lake City is on the east side; the western side is extremely desolate.

Weren’t the Mormons out as far as Utah only because they were kicked out of their original “This is the place” in Illinois?

Cincinnati was first settled in 1788, just one year after establishment of the Northwest Territory. Those first settlers were mostly Revolutionary War veterans from Virginia and various land speculators who formed companies to buy up huge…tracts of land :wink: to divide and sell off. These earliest settlers sailed down the Ohio River on flatboats and upon reaching their destination used the wood from the boats to build their cabins. Forts and various “stations” were required to protect from Indian raids, so settlement was generally very limited until after the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.

Even though I’m not from here, apparently I have a bunch of distant relatives a bit north up the Great Miami Valley on the way to Dayton, as a large contingent of German farmers settled there where there’s good soil (as compared to the deeply cut non-glaciated hills of Kentucky or the poorly drained clayey soils to the east). The river isn’t navigable but canals were built in the 1820s and railroads followed in the 1850s providing good access to the booming cities of Cincinnati and Dayton, as well as the industrializing cities in between. Those are good markets for farm products. That’s just one specific example of a highly localized settlement pattern which, as mentioned above, would be quite the research project to document the entire country.

D’oh. :smack:

Half of my immediate ancestors came from Norway in the late 19th century and settled with all the other Norskies and
Swedes in Minnesota and the Red River valley between Minn and North Dakota. Their laconic decendants can be seen in the movie “Fargo”. The other half were German farmers recruited by Catherine the Great in the 18th c. to make the Ukraine more productive. They ended up in all parts of N. & S. Dakota and Canada where the terrain and climate were sort of similar to what they were used to. There was no need to learn English even up to 2nd and even 3rd generations. Witness Lawrence (a one and a two) Welk. I suspect many immigrant groups followed roughly the same pattern.

(Reading from a teleprompter or cue card: Here’s a little tune from WW I)

“Here’s a little tune from double u double u eye.”

And also central Kansas. My wife’s people were among those Mennonite settlers. The settled those plains because of their resemblance to the Ukrainian breadbasket lands they had for growing the hard red winter wheat they became famous for.

But the soil of a man’s heart is stonier.

Just to expound on this great discussion (about Utah, SLC, NoCal, PNW, western expansion. et al), when I traveled over the Wellsville Mountains and got a view of Cache Valley, I was smitten to say the least. Lived there for a few years, then moved on back east. Go figure. Miss that place. See that pic? Just on the right? That was me waving to you. I can’t imagine traveling by cart before paved roads. http://www.wellsvillecity.com/ Some of us are born to be travelers.

Great username/post combo!

My grandfauther always said ask if said “This is the place!” or if he said “This is the place?”

But Salt Lake has some advantages if you are looking to start up your own country.

  1. It wasn’t officially claimed, and they wished to set up their own state (originally Deseret)
  2. It was along the path of almost all western migration which had to cross South Pass as the Red Desert in southern Wyoming wasn’t a viable option with livestock.
  3. It is significantly lower altitude than the high plateau that precedes it.
  4. it had a highly constricted canyon just to the East which offered opportunities from defense.
    For a long period of time the Pioneers practiced what could be viewed as an early form of communism, where communities and families were tasked with producing goods which were often sold to other immigrants passing through.

Like many other places in the west there was a huge boom when gold and silver were found near by. The early Mormon church had a distaste for mining so a lot of the more affluent areas were actually non-members.

While there was a lot of settlement due to homesteading over time most of the communities in that part of the country were based around either trade or resources.

When the railroad came through they had to re-water steam engines often and communities grew around the tracks. As those needs declined most of those communities that didn’t have another feature like coal went away.

To put this in context, just 70 miles away in Wyoming, which is at ~6,800 compared to Salt Lake City which is at ~4200 feet. You cannot farm, but only ranch and even people who are lucky enough to have water rights can only get one cutting of alfalfa a year.

On the path back East farming is not practical until around Riverton/Lander Wyoming which is on the other side of the continental divide.

While not 100% absolute for all settlers, the ones that weren’t driven by religious convictions in the area were offered hard rock/coal mining jobs or were chasing their own claims and homesteaded locally over time. The Mormon Pioneers tended to set up around water and trade routes/trails like they did in Salt Lake and Las Vegas.