Tooele County, Utah
| Tooele County, Utah | |
|---|---|
 Location in the U.S. state of Utah |
|
 Utah's location in the U.S. |
|
| Founded | 1850/1851 |
| Seat | Tooele |
| Largest city | Tooele |
| Area | |
| • Total | 7,286 sq mi (18,871 km2) |
| • Land | 6,941 sq mi (17,977 km2) |
| • Water | 345 sq mi (894 km2), 4.7% |
| Population (est.) | |
| • (2015) | 62,952 |
| • Density | 8.4/sq mi (3/km²) |
| Congressional district | 2nd |
| Time zone | Mountain |
| Website | www |
Tooele County /tuːˈɪlə/ is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 census, the population was 58,218. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year.
Tooele County is part of the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area. A 2008 CNNMoney.com article identified Tooele as the U.S. county experiencing the greatest job growth since 2000.
Evidence of several indigenous Native American groups has been found in Tooele County, but only the western Shoshone-speaking Goshute tribe claim the desolate lands as their ancestral home. The Goshute's traditional territory includes most of modern Tooele County.
The Great Salt Lake Desert, which comprises much of the northern portion of the county, provided a major stumbling block for the ill-fated Donner-Reed Party in 1846. Its crusty sand slowed the group's wagons to such an extent that the group spent six days crossing its 80-mile length, severely sapping the group's resources.
In 1849 the first white settlers established permanent roots in the Tooele Valley. They were members of the Latter-day Saint emigration group which had arrived in 1847. Building a sawmill, the settlement was called "E.T. City" after LDS leader E.T. Benson. The territorial legislature first designated Tooele County—initially called "Tuilla"—in January 1850 with significantly different boundaries. It is speculated that the name derives from a Native American chief, but controversy exists about whether such chief lived. Alternate explanations hypothesize that the name comes from "tu-wanda", the Goshute word for "bear", or from "tule", a Spanish word of Aztec origins meaning "bulrush". Tooele was one of the six original counties in Deseret, which would become Utah Territory.
...
Wikipedia