Utah History for Kids

Area: 603 square miles
Population (2000): 7,129
County Seat: Morgan
Origin of County Name: named after LDS leader Jedediah Morgan Grant
Principal Cities/Towns: Morgan (2,635)
Economy: livestock, manufacturing
Points of Interest: East Canyon State Park, Mountain Green trappers confrontation site, Mormon Flat

Recently shorn sheep from the Bertagnole ranch are being herded toward a summer range in East Canyon

What is the land like?
Located in high valleys east of the Wasatch Mountains, Morgan County is divided by Weber Canyon, now the route of Interstate 84. As the Weber River flows west through this canyon toward the Great Salt Lake, thirteen tributary creeks add to its flow.

The many streams that feed into the Weber River made the area attractive to prehistoric indians, Shoshone and Ute Indians, and the fur trappers of the 1820s. In 1825, near present-day Mountain Green, trappers of the British Hudson's Bay Company under Peter Skene Ogden and competing American trappers came dangerously close to fighting, but Ogden kept the situation from becoming a major international incident.

Settlers
Thomas J. Thurston of Centerville was the first to recognize the possibilities of settling in Morgan County. In 1852, he and his two sons were cutting logs in the mountains east of Centerville. Upon reaching the summit they looked down upon a beautiful green valley. Later, Thurston and two friends explored the valley and found plenty of fish and game. However, the valley was surrounded by high mountains. The only entrances lay through the steep gorges cut by the river at each end of Weber Canyon. Some emigrant trains had traveled through the canyon, but the route was still very rough.

But Thurston had a dream. In 1855 he finally talked some other men into improving the access to the canyon. With picks, crowbars, and small plows, they completed a rocky road into the valley.

The new settlers built homes at Weber City (later to be named Peterson) and further south at the future town site of Littleton. It wasn't long before fifteen new settlements, including Morgan, had been formed in what is now Morgan County (which was created in 1862).

When the Union Pacific Railroad laid track through the length of Weber Canyon in 1868-69, it literally put Morgan on the map. The railroad construction also helped establish a better, safer road that eventually became a major route and a "Gateway to the West." Weber Canyon has also provided a corridor for communication lines, power lines, and oil lines.

Economy
Morgan has a larger percentage of privately owned land than any other county in Utah. Much of it is used for agriculture, especially beef and dairy cattle, sheep, poultry, mink farming, hay, wheat, and other field crops.

During 1860-75, lumbering in Hardscrabble Canyon was an important industry. Thousands of railroad ties were furnished to build the Union Pacific Railroad line, and charcoal was shipped to Bingham for use in smelting. During the building of the UP Railroad in 1868, a number of businesses opened in Morgan City, and it became the county's trade center. Some say it was the only incorporated city on the UP line between Ogden and Omaha, Nebraska.

Devil's Slide cement manufacturing plant.

In 1904 the Morgan Canning Company opened as a pea cannery. The business grew, and a second factory was built in Smithfield, Cache County.

Morgan is home to Browning Arms and Holcim Inc. (a cement plant). The manufacturing of Portland cement is a major local industry. This important industrial product has been produced at the Devil's Slide plant for more than 80 years. In addition to limestone--the main ingredient in cement--silver, lead, copper, coal, iron, sulphur, and mica have been found in Morgan, but most mining has been on a small scale. But agriculture, manufacturing, and trade do not provide enough jobs for residents, and in recent years more than half of those employed--the largest percentage in any county--have worked outside Morgan, mostly in the greater Ogden area.

As it becomes more difficult for farmers to make a profit, much of the land is being sold for residential development.