• The Fourth of July celebration in 1881 included a first to Black Rock beach for picnics, swimming and singing. The event didn't end at dark, as the wagons and carriages remained there overnight and partygoers slept on the Great Salt Lake's beaches.

• American Indians in the Salt Lake Valley were mostly friendly. However, one settler's journal talks about how a young Elizabeth Morgan was stolen by whooping and yelling young bucks and taken to the Indians' camp. When a group of men went after her, they found her safe. The Indians were playing a prank, but the settlers weren't taking it lightly.

• Wagons would commonly run over snakes and cut them in two in the Fort Douglas area of Salt Lake.

• Main Street in Salt Lake was nicknamed Whiskey Street in the 1860s, because of the Army's influence in making alcohol much more available there. By 1863, liquor licenses provided more city revenues than any other source. A liquor license in Salt Lake then cost 750 a month.

• The "Great" in Salt Lake City's name was dropped in 1868.

• By 1883, there were 14 mule-drawn street cars going along nine miles of track in Salt Lake City.

• In 1869 before the railroad, there were only 700 non-Mormon church members among the Salt Lake Valley's 11,000 residents. By 1873, the "Gentile" population had risen to 25 percent. Most non-Mormons lived on the south and west sides of downtown, while members of the church dominated the north and east sides.

• Brigham Young named Sandy City in 1873, for its thirsty soil.

• Calder Park, a popular amusement place that attracted up to 100,000 patrons a season, eventually became Nibley Park Golf Course.

• In the late 1880s businesses in Riverton used to close every Thursday for decades. No one remembered why this was, although theories of the Thursday Mormon fast day or traditional British half-days off might have caused it.

• The original Salt Lake Palace was on 900 South, between State and Main.

• In 1915, Salt Lake City began chlorinating drinking water.

• World War I meant more jobs in Salt Lake City — even mechanical jobs — became open to women for the first time.

• Smoke pollution was a problem in the early 1900s in Salt Lake. Some said the city rivaled Pittsburgh pollution, but it was the topography that made it seem worse. Smelters in Murray finally closing eased pollution somewhat.

Sources: "A History of Salt Lake County," by Linda Sillitoe and "The Utah History Encyclopedia," edited by Kent Powell.

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E-mail: lynn@desnews.com