American Fork (Utah)
Utah County
49-01310
American Fork is a city in the U.S. state of Utah, in the same Utah County with 21 371 inhabitants ( 2005) on an area of 19 square kilometers. It lies at an altitude of 1404 meters on the north shore of Utah Lake and at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. This makes it one of the settlement axis below the Wasatch Range from Salt Lake City to Provo and counts as a suburb to the Provo - Orem metropolitan area (Provo - Orem metropolitan area ).
It was named after the American Fork River, which flows through the town coming to Utah to lead Lake in American Fork Canyon in the Wasatch Range.
History
The oldest archaeological traces of the region belong to the Fremont culture. In historical times, the region west of the Wasatch Mountains belonged to the home range of the Ute Indians. The Dominguez -Escalante expedition of two Franciscan Fathers in 1775, was the first white to the Utah Lake, fur trappers and traders of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were in the 1820s, the first white, the longer resided in the area. The first settlers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( Mormons), who arrived in 1850 and in the 1850s an obtained in parts of Fort built to protect their farms.
The first informal settlement in 1853 registered as Lake City as a local authority. As mayor, was the first 29 years of the city emissaries of the Church, Leonard E. Harrington, elected again and again, who was also the local bishop of the church at the same time and served as head of the post office. After a farmer of the region, who had created irrigation ditches, the settlement was called McArthursville, until 1860 its name was changed back to the American Fork used before the city's founding. 1868 decided the community meeting that the urban primary school in the future be financed from taxes and should be free for the students, American Fork, making it the first community in Utah that abolished school fees.
The place lived first of the cattle with dairy cattle and sheep in the original wide valley meadows on the shores of Utah Lake, the further influx of settlers was based on agriculture and laid parallel to the mountain range in the higher elevations irrigation channels. Industry, which came in first in the Second World War, when the Columbia Steel Company 1942/43, on the lake shore, just outside the city limits in time community- free area of Utah County, today Vineyard, a steel plant was built, which exploited the coal and iron ore deposits in the region. With the operation attracted workers from the eastern United States in the region. The steel mill closed down in 2001, after the operation was no longer commercially successful since the 1980s. The facilities were sold to China in 2004 and removed.
Situation
Since the 1970s, American Fork is a suburb of the economic centers of the Wasatchfront and has quadrupled its population 1970-2010. Due to the past as a steel town with only one dominant employer in American Fork is economically rather weak, the median income is around $ 50,000 / household below that of the surrounding settlements with $ 56,000 / household for Utah County. The level of education is above average but weaker than in the average of the county with 29.6 % of the population with a college degree in the city against 34.7 % in Utah County .. The city as in all of Utah offers regional central functions with a large, and well-equipped hospital and the seat of the Alpine School District. The city center has a high proportion of green with parks and sports grounds, the boat harbor at Utah Lake and access to the Wasatch Mountains on the American Fork Canyon with the cave Timpanogos Cave National Monument make the city a starting point for recreation.
American Fork has grown together with Lehi in the West and Pleasant Grove in the southeast, and the small settlements Cedar Hills in the northeast and Highland in the north. The industry settlement Vineyard is located in the south of the city by the lake. American Fork is accessible via Interstate Highway 15 in the north-south direction, the nearest airport is Provo Municipal Airport in Provo.
Sons and daughters of the town
- Wayne Booth, Professor of English Literature
- Reva Beck bosons, politician
- Gary R. Herbert, Governor of Utah