In 1935 there were 543 manufacturing plants with 11,524 workers and paying them $11,196,373 annually in wages. The cost of raw material used amounted to $80,899,275 and the value added by manufacturing was $35,023,25o. The leading industry was lead smelting with an output valued at $14, 14S,140. Flour-mills followed next with a product of $8,612,802. Other important industries were canned fruits and vegetables, $7,004,861; beet sugar, $5,993,055; meat packing, $5,796,369; printing and publishing, $4,368,676; bread and bakery products, $3,618,875; butter, $2,873,184 ; condensed milk, $2,484,182; and animal feeds, $2,412,259. Over one-third of Utah's manufacturing was done in Salt Lake City, over one-half in Salt Lake County, and all but 3o of the 543 establishments were located in the north ern section of the State. Manufactured products valued at
406,373 were reported by State Chamber of Commerce for 1936.
The Old Spanish trail, the Great Salt Lake trail and the Overland trail all aided in the early development of the State. The Union Pacific was the first railway and has con tinued to be the dominating one, sending its branches into nearly every important mining or commercial centre. Other railways are the Denver and Rio Grande Western, the Southern Pacific and the Los Angeles and Salt Lake, operated by the Union Pacific. In 1934 steam railways within the State operated over 2,16om.; while electric roads possessed 476m. in 1932. At the close of the 1934 season 4,625m. of road within the State belonged to the State highway system. Of this, 2.612m. were surfaced, either paved or gravelled. The mileage of local and country roads in 1930 was 23,655, of which 4,451 miles were surfaced. State road expenditures totalled $6,618,25o in 1936.
Utah was acquired by the United States from Mex ico in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which terminated the Mexican War. Before Mexico had become an independent nation, however, Utah was a part of Spanish possessions and the Spaniards were its first explorers. The first extensive exploration occurred in 1776, when Father Escalante and Father Dominguez set out to find an overland route from Santa Fe to Monterey, on the California coast. Crossing south-western Colorado, they en tered Utah in the east about where the Grand river enters the State, continued west across the Green river, followed an Indian trail over the Wasatch range, and descended the Spanish Fork to Lake Utah, where they camped and preached to a large gathering of Indians. From them the fathers heard of a great salt lake to
the north, but they did not visit it. Instead they headed south west, crossing the divide to the Sevier river and thence across Sevier desert. Here their guide deserted them, so they decided to return to Santa Fe. The fathers did not fully accomplish their purpose, but the first part of their route later became part of the old Spanish trail from Santa Fe to Monterey. Three separate parties of American trappers under Wolfskill and Ewing Young journeyed over the entire route in 1830. It was also the road taken by Fremont on his return eastward in
The first Americans to penetrate Utah or the Great Basin region, it seems, were the four men Miller, Hoback, Robinson and Rezner, detached in 1811-12 from the overland expedition of John Jacob Astor to trap in eastern Idaho. Their vague account seems to indicate that they crossed north-eastern Utah. There has been much discussion as to who discovered Great Salt Lake. On a map of North America engraved for Gutherie's New System of Geog raphy (181i) a considerable lake with no outlet is represented in the same position approximately as Great Salt Lake, and it bears this legend "Lake, etc., laid down according to Mr. Lawrence, who is said to have travelled through to California in 1790-91." As nothing further is known of Lawrence, credit is usually given to James Bridger, who came into the country with a trapping expedition sent out in 1824 by William Ashley of St. Louis. The expedition was divided into detachments, Bridger accompanying that which wintered on Bear river, while Etienne Provost led another which may have wintered on Great Salt Lake. If so, Provost was the discoverer of the lake, for Bridger did not make his discovery until the spring of 1825, when, to settle a wager as to the outlet of Bear river, he went down its course to the lake. Finding it salt he believed it was an arm of the ocean. In 1826, the next year, Smith started from Great Salt Lake to explore the unknown south-west to the Pacific. On his return he struggled 20 days across the deserts of Nevada and Utah to reach Great Salt Lake, which he did without loss of a man. It was the first expedi tion to cross the western country by the central route or to pene trate any distance into the basin west of Great Salt Lake, so open ing up a vast territory.