UTAH (see ).—The pop. of Utah in 1920 was 449,396, an increase over 1910 of 76,045 or 20.4%, a rate of increase 5.5% greater than that of the United States as a whole. The density of pop. increased from 4.5 persons per sq. m. in 1910 to 5.5 in 1920. The urban pop. increased from 46.3% in 1910 to 48% in 1920.
Before 1891 the two political organizations in the state were
known as People's party and Liberal party, closely corresponding
to Mormon and anti-Mormon. These old names ceased to
be used in the decade 1910–20; there was an evident desire to
forget the old feuds between Mormons and non-Mormons who
alike composed the Republican and Democratic parties, and
political divisions were no longer on religious lines. Utah has
been Republican since its admission as a state in 1896, excepting
in 1896, when the electoral vote was cast for Bryan, and in 1916, when the presidential vote was for Wilson and a Democratic governor and other state officers were elected.
Recent governors have been William Spry (Republican), 1909–17; Simon Bamberger (Democrat), 1917–21; Charles R. Mabey (Republican), 1921–. Bamberger, the only governor of Utah not connected with the Mormon Church, was born in Germany of Jewish parents. Joseph Fielding Smith, president of the Church of Latter Day Saints from 1901, died in Nov. 1918. He was a nephew of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. His successor was Heber J. Grant.
The state's most important irrigation enterprise, the Strawberry
Project, begun in 1906, was practically completed in 1918. By means of a tunnel 4 m. long through the Wasatch Mts., water is brought from a drainage basin on the E. side of the mountains into the Utah valley, 45 m. away. The reservoir in Strawberry valley, covering 8,100 ac., 7,600 ft. above sea-level, has a capacity of 280,000 ac. ft., of which only 75,000 are to be used annually until the project is enlarged. Use was begun Sept. 1913, and in 1920 70,000 ac. were irrigated from it. The state's irrigated acreage in 1909 was 458,273; in 1919 722,772; and works existed capable of irrigating 944,727 acres. Two canyons, Brice's and Little Zion, are reserved as national parks.
In Aug. 1909 Earl Douglass, a geologist, while conducting an
expedition sent out by the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, discovered in Uinta county the first complete skeleton of a dinosaur. Excavations for its removal revealed a deposit, the most extensive yet found, of fossil remains of extinct animals. The spot, embracing 80 ac., was set aside in 1915 by the U.S. Government and named Dinosaur National Monument.