Salt Lake City Real Estate Area Information and Homes for Sale in Salt Lake County, UT.


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Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is Utah's state capital and the seat of Salt Lake County. It is a vibrant cultural center featuring one of the nation's finest regional symphony orchestras, world-class opera, dance, and theater companies, an illustrious choir and an array of art galleries. Downtown Salt Lake City has undergone a revitalization including a new $350 million light rail system, a new central library designed by Moshe Safdi and the new Gateway mixed-use development with more than 90 shops, 150 apartments and condos, a state-of-the-art planetarium, the Children's Museum of Utah and a restored Union Pacific Depot.

DOWNTOWN

In addition to the 3,500-plus residents that call downtown home, there are also 18,000 residents who live within one mile of downtown in several historic neighborhoods including the Capitol Hill and Central City neighborhoods. Other residents take advantage of urban loft living and condominiums in the Gateway, Depot and West Temple districts. Other popular Salt Lake neighborhoods include the Avenues, Federal Heights, Yale-Harvard, Gilmore Park and Sugarhouse, all within ten minutes of downtown.

EDUCATION

The Salt Lake City School District is well respected and provides the community with quality education. The district has 36 school campuses: 27 elementary schools (K-6), five middle schools (7-8), three high schools (9-12), and one alternative high school. The city is home to a number of facilities of higher education including the University of Utah, the LDS Business College, Salt Lake Community College, Westminster College of Salt Lake City and others.

SHOPPING

Salt Lake and shopping have gone hand in hand for over a century. The first department store in the United States opened for business in the city in 1868. Today, Salt Lake is a well-known area for excellent shopping sprees with a variety of malls, shopping villages, specialty boutiques, antique and collectible shops, bookstores, factory outlet malls, outdoor shopping and entertainment destinations to choose from.

RECREATION

When it comes to recreation, Salt Lake is a year-round destination. It is recognized as one of North America's finest ski destinations. Ten major ski resorts are located in the area with more than 100 ski lifts, seven cross-country areas and the nation's only recreational ski jumping complex. Skiers are provided with quality and a great quantity of snow with an average annual snowfall of more than 500 inches.

Salt Lake is home to several professional sports teams, including the Salt Lake Jazz, perennial contenders in the NBA; the professional hockey team, the Grizzlies; the Salt Lake Warriors, Utah’s indoor football team; the Utah Spiders, the top women’s semi-professional soccer team in the country; and the Salt Lake Stingers professional baseball team. Major League Soccer has announced the Salt Lake Real, its new team.

Salt Lake's public golf courses are some of the highest rated, best-maintained and most affordable public courses in the country. The city is home to eight incredible full-service golf courses. There are 126 individual parks covering 1,912 acres of land with 58 municipal playgrounds available. The intermountain region has 10 national parks all within a day's drive of Salt Lake City.

THE GREAT SALT LAKE

The community's namesake – the Great Salt Lake – was created from prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which 10,000 to 30,000 years ago covered some 20,000 square miles of land in what is now Utah, Nevada and Idaho. Four rivers and numerous streams empty into the Great Salt Lake carrying large amounts of dissolved minerals. The lake has no outlet, so these minerals are trapped. The resulting high salinity rate ranges from 9% to 28% as compared to 3% salinity in the world's oceans. Sunsets over the Great Salt Lake are breathtaking. Amazing red, orange, lavender and magenta hues slowly dissolve in the nighttime sky. The Great Salt Lake is a bird watcher's paradise with numerous species feeding on the lake's brine shrimp. For boaters, there is a marina with 300 slips available as well as camping facilities.

HISTORY

The history of Salt Lake City is tied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), who founded the city in 1847. They did not come as individuals acting on their own, but as a well-organized, centrally directed group. And they came for a religious purpose, to establish a religious utopia in the wilderness, which they called the Kingdom of God on Earth. Like the Puritan founders of Massachusetts more than 200 years earlier, Mormons considered themselves on a mission from God, having been sent into the wilderness to establish a model society.

The settlers quickly developed the land by creating irrigation for the area and planting crops. By 1848, the valley became a territory of the United States. In 1849, the California gold rush greatly influenced Salt Lake City's growth. Gold rushers looked to residents of Salt Lake City for their fresh livestock and crops in return for clothing, tools and manufactured goods.

By 1850, Congress organized the "State of Deseret" into the Utah Territory and Salt Lake was incorporated as the city of the Great Salt Lake on January 6, 1851. Salt Lake then became the territorial capital in 1856. In 1863, the discovery of lead and silver in Bingham Canyon led to the development of mining in the Great Salt Lake City area. Hundreds of copper, silver, gold and lead mines were opened in nearby canyons. The city's name was officially changed from Great Salt Lake City to Salt Lake City at around this same time.

The 1900s saw even more development of the area and an increase in population from 53,531 to 140,267. During the Great Depression construction was stalled, but the start of World War II revitalized Salt Lake City's mining industry. After the war, industrial expansion continued, as did the city's population.

Beginning in 1970, the downtown area was resurrected by new businesses and shopping malls and the renovation of classic older buildings. The 1980s saw continued development with the Salt Palace Convention Center expansion, the Salt Lake International Center, the University of Utah Research Park and the Triad Center. The community in the 1990s had record inmigration and technology, pharmaceutical and research industries flourished. Today, Salt Lake City continues to prosper and is recognized as a great place to work, live, play and retire.