Territory of Utah

Territory of Utah
Organized incorporated territory of the United States
← 1850–1896 →   →   →   →   →
Territorial coat of arms (1876)
The Utah Territory upon its creation. Modern state boundaries are shown for reference.
Capital		Fillmore (1851–1856) Salt Lake City
Government		Organized incorporated territory
Governor
•	1851–1858	Brigham Young
•	1893–1896	Caleb Walton West
Legislature		Utah Territorial Assembly
History
•	State of Deseret	1849
•	Utah Organic Act	September 9, 1850
•	Colorado Territory formed	February 28, 1861
•	Nevada Territory formed	March 2, 1861
•	Wyoming Territory formed	July 25, 1868
•	Statehood	January 4, 1896

Territorial coat of arms (1876)

The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah.

The territory was organized by an Organic Act of Congress in 1850, on the same day that the State of California was admitted to the Union and the New Mexico Territory was added for the southern portion of the new Mexican land. The creation of the territory was part of the Compromise of 1850 that sought to preserve the balance of power between slave and free states. With the exception of a small area around the headwaters of the Colorado River in present-day Colorado, the United States had acquired all the land of the territory from Mexico with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848.

The creation of the Utah Territory was partially the result of the petition sent by the Mormon pioneers who had settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake starting in 1847. The Mormons, under the leadership of Brigham Young, had petitioned Congress for entry into the Union as the State of Deseret, with its capital as Salt Lake City and with proposed borders that encompassed the entire Great Basin and the watershed of the Colorado River, including all or part of nine current U.S. states. The Mormon settlers had drafted a state constitution in 1849 and Deseret had become the de facto government in the Great Basin by the time of the creation of the Utah Territory.

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