Salt Lake City Prequel

I'm off in a few hours for Utah. Three days of conferencing in Salt Lake City and then a vacation week in Park City. I've been doing my usual prep work, scouting out good hiking trails, brew pubs, and books.

I easily accumulated a list of good breweries (although recommendations are always appreciated), and hiking in the Wasatch Mountains sounds fantastic, but there is a notable lack of good, related reading material, unless you count mysteries and polygamist biographies. Having read Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith , which is both, I'm all set as far as that genre goes.

There are a few "history " books, which don't read well, but do have some information. The Lady In The Ore Bucket: A History of Settlement and Industry in the Tri-Canyon Area of the Wasatch Mountains begins with settlement of the city and continues on through the lumber and mining eras.

The thing that surprises me about the early years isn't so much the casual use of the word 'wives ', I got used to that on my last visit, no, it's the land ownership system. Basically, the Church and or Brigham Young owned the land and everyone else either leased it from them or...I don't know...got some by marrying some of his children? Luckily multiple wives beget multiple children and land ownership became more and more common as the years rolled on. But still it seems a strange feudal / socialist system and one that is often overlooked. Makes me wonder....