I was saddened at the recent passing of Larry Miller. His impact on Tooele County in recent years has been quite substantial.

But I was also reminded of a rumor circulating a few years ago that Miller was considering Tooele County as a possible location for a Six Flags theme park. Even though that idea turned out to be nothing more than a rumor, Tooele County has been considered for more important things in the past — like the headquarters for the LDS church.

On Tuesday, July 27, 1847, Brigham Young and other pioneers who had accompanied that first wagon train to enter the valley set out to inventory the natural resources — water, soil and wood — of the Salt Lake Valley west of the Jordan River. They were looking for the best site at which to establish the new headquarters of the church.

After crossing the river, the party continued west for about 13 miles to the north point of the Oquirrh Mountains, following the south shore of the Great Salt Lake and stopping at Black Rock for lunch and a swim.

Erastus Snow, a member of the exploring party described the first experience in the lake as an entertaining one.

“The waters of the ocean can bear no comparison to those of the lake,” wrote Snow. “Those who couldn’t swim at all floated upon the surface like a cork and found it out of their power to sink.”

Fellow companion Wilford Woodruff thought the Great Salt Lake was “one of the wonders of the world.”

After their swim, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards and George Albert Smith continued westward into the northeast corner of the Tooele Valley.

Pratt’s journal entry for July 27, 1847 states: “We continued on about four miles beyond Black Rock, when we reached a valley southward from the lake. This valley we judged to be about 12 miles in diameter. On the south there was a small opening, which we supposed might be a continuation of the valley on an opening into a plain beyond.”

No details were given concerning any geographical landmarks or the type of terrain, but I assume it was pretty similar to the undeveloped land north of the highway running between Stansbury and Grantsville.

The party returned to the same spring at the north point of the Oquirrh’s to spend the night in the same place they had rested at noon.

Early the following morning, while backtracking the party’s westward trail of the previous day, the group ran into about 20 Utes who were traveling eastward from Tooele. It’s interesting to note that the first American Indians encountered by pioneers in the Tooele Valley were Utes, not the Goshutes one would have expected.

The cursory examination of the land west of the Jordan River apparently convinced Brigham Young and his companions that soil west of the Jordan was not only less fertile than that on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley, but that fresh water was also very limited to the west. The next day, July 29, Young selected and designated the land for the Salt Lake Temple between the forks of City Creek in the Salt Lake Valley.

Natalie Tripp: ntripp@tooeletranscript.com