Why Anyone Built a City Next to the Great Salt Lake

About 1.3 million people live beside a lake saltier than the ocean, with no fish and no outlet, in a basin whose water never reaches the sea. They came here on purpose. Isolation was the goal, and the snow on the mountains, not the lake, made it livable. Now the city is drinking the rivers that keep the lake alive. From Lake Bonneville and the Wasatch snow to the exodus from Nauvoo, the dammed creek of July 1847, the crickets and the gulls, the gold rush, the Utah War, the railroad at Promontory, and the shrinking lake of today. This is the case of Salt Lake City. Chapters 0:00 The Case 2:07 The Dead Sea 5:09 The Faucet 8:04 The Exodus 10:48 Water First 13:38 Crickets and Gold 16:09 The World Comes Anyway 18:56 The Bill 21:12 The Verdict Every city is a case. Sources USGS, Great Salt Lake: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/utah-wat... USGS, Great Salt Lake Elevations and Areal Extent: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/utah-wat... Utah DWR, Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program: https://wildlife.utah.gov/gslep/ Utah Geological Survey, Lake Bonneville: https://geology.utah.gov/popular/gene... NPS, Great Basin National Park, Geology: https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/nature... SLC Public Utilities, City Creek: Salt Lake City's First Water Supply: http://www.slcdocs.com/utilities/pdf%... Utah History to Go, A History of Utah's American Indians: https://historytogo.utah.gov/uhg-hist... Church History Topics, Exodus from Nauvoo: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s... PBS American Experience, The Great Mormon Migration: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexpe... Library of Congress, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: https://guides.loc.gov/treaty-guadalu... Church History Topics, City Planning: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s... Utah Division of State History, Why is Utah's state bird the California Gull?: https://history.utah.gov/blog/califor... Utah History to Go, Forty-Niners in Salt Lake Valley: https://historytogo.utah.gov/forty-ni... Utah History to Go, The Utah War: https://historytogo.utah.gov/utah-war/ NPS, Golden Spike National Historical Park: https://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm NASA Earth Observatory, Record Low for Great Salt Lake: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... Wurtsbaugh et al., Utah State University (2016): https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/wats_f... University of Utah, Toxic Dust Hot Spots: https://science.utah.edu/news/toxic-d... BYU, Great Salt Lake: https://pws.byu.edu/great-salt-lake More sources in the pinned comment. Credits Photos under Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons: "SLC Skyline 2024" by Invictus323, CC BY 4.0 "Great Salt Lake and Interstate 80 from plane" by David Herrera, CC BY 2.0 "Antelope Island State Park, Utah" by Jayden Yun, CC BY 4.0 "Salt Lake City skyline, August 2011" by Garrett, CC BY 2.0 "Farmington Bay, Antelope Island and the Great Salt Lake" by pedrik, CC BY 2.0 "Salt Lake City, Utah, United States skyline" by 888emmanuelc888, CC BY 4.0 "Great Salt Lake, Utah - ISS - May 28 2026" by Kevin M. Gill, CC BY 4.0 "California Gulls in flight, Saltair, Utah 1" by r. nial bradshaw, CC BY 2.0 "TRAX light rail train and bus with Salt Lake Temple (2000)" by David Wilson, CC BY 2.0 "GreatSaltLakeMarina" by Irwin-Scott, CC BY 2.0 "Antelope Island State Park, Great Salt Lake" by Matthew Dillon, CC BY 2.0 Wasatch Front photos by Alfred Twu, CC0; "Ensign Peak above City Creek Canyon" by Beneathtimp, CC0; "City Creek Center" by Hermann Luyken, CC0 Public domain: NASA (ISS, MODIS, Scientific Visualization Studio); National Archives (NARA); Library of Congress; USGS; US Forest Service; US Fish and Wildlife Service; US Navy; NOAA and CSU/CIRA; historic photographs, maps and engravings via Wikimedia Commons. Music: "Time" by Komiku, CC0. Sound effects: Map Noir, CC0. Lake Bonneville outline: Utah Geological Survey, from Chen and Maloof (2017), CC BY 4.0, simplified. Elevation: USGS SRTM/GMTED2010, NOAA ETOPO1, EU-DEM (Copernicus) via AWS Terrain Tiles. Maps: Natural Earth (public domain). Graphics: Map Noir.