Spanish Fork, Utah

Utah County

49-71290

Spanish Fork is a city in Utah Valley at Utah Lake in Utah County in the U.S. state of Utah with 34 691 inhabitants in 2010. It lies at an altitude of 1395 m in the far shore level in the southeast of the lake, beneath the mountains of the Wasatch Range and a part to Orem / Provo metropolitan area.

History

Like the entire valley of the Utah Lake included the southeastern coastal plain originally for Streifegebit the eponymous Ute Indians. The first white men in the area were members of the Dominguez -Escalante expedition, who came in 1776 in the later Utah, as they looked for a route from Santa Fe to the Spanish also Spanish California. They reached the valley over the canyon of the latest 1845 on a map by John C. Frémont named after them Spanish Fork River, from which the town's name derives.

1850, the first white man settled permanently, Enoch Reece founded immediately west of the present city, and brought a ranch with 200 cattle. The following winter more settlers arrived, who had come in the context of organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints settlement of Utah Valley over the Mormon Trail to Utah. The Mormon pioneers were mostly farmers who used the alluvium to the river for agriculture. By the end of 1852 there were already over 100 families who built the good soils. 1854 they built an attachment named Fort Saint Luke to their settlement, who retired because of the supposed threat of the Indians and 19 families from the more westerly location Palmyra. 1855 became independent Spanish Fork as city. The following year, Palmyra was abandoned and extended the urban area of ​​Spanish Fork accordingly.

Between 1855 and 1860, the first Icelandic immigrants of North America settled in Spanish Fork. Reminded a monument, which was inaugurated in 2005 by Gordon B. Hinckley (President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ) and the President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grimsson. 1858 fled some 100 families from the north adjacent Salt Lake Valley to Spanish Fork, when the U.S. Army established a base on the Great Salt Lake and the danger that they would take action against the Mormon plural marriage.

1858 also opened the first commercial operation of the resort, a sawmill, the treated wood from the mountains for house construction and other purposes. The owner founded the following year, the first flour mill in Spanish Fork. 1860 already lived 1,069 people (Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh and Scandinavian descent ) in Spanish Fork. The first school in the town was opened in 1862.

With an iron plant began in 1884 in the industrial age in the city. Since 1909, there is a drinking water supply in the city and in the same year began the construction of a power grid, a hydroelectric plant was built on the river for 1910. Starting from 1915 and completed in 1919 an irrigation system for the bank level was built in Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project, through which the arable land in the city and the region could be greatly expanded. There followed in 1925 a canning factory of Utah Packing Corporation, could be produced by vegetables such as peas, beans and tomatoes from Spanish Fork for distant regions.

Spanish Fork today

After the Second World War, the town had 5,200 inhabitants in 1950, in the following decades it grew to 1990 to about 11,000. After the structural change from predominantly agricultural settlement began in the suburb of the economic centers of Provo and Orem. In the year 2000 20.246 inhabitants have already been counted, then 34 691 2010. The appearance of the city today is characterized by sprawling housing estates. This Spanish Fork is economically significantly below the regional average, the median household income in 2000 was $ 48.705, while it stood at $ 56.752 for the Utah County. Also, the formal education level of the population is below the average, while in Spanish Fork 21.9 % of residents have a college degree, reach in Utah County 34.7 % this training.

Spanish Fork is served by Interstate Highway 15 with Provo and Salt Lake City in the north, and the tourist areas of the Colorado Plateau and Las Vegas and Los Angeles in the southwest. Through the Canyon of the Spanish Fork River come from the southeast, the bundled extending highways U.S. 6 and U.S. 89 added, of which the U.S. 6 west and Nevada, and the U.S. 89 15 continues parallel to the I to the north. The settlement area has so far focused largely on the region below the mountains and southeast of I 15, the actual bank level will continue to be used primarily agricultural and is the long term as the area reserves for an extension of the city or the establishment of industry.

The city is adjacent to Springville in the Northeast, the East Mapleton and Salem in the southwest.