As an SLC transplant, I'll say this - the grid and naming system makes it so easy to find your way around and instantly know where a place is, based just on its address. Coming from Orlando - which was apparently laid out in homage to a spilled bowl of spaghetti, it was a nice change.
You're description of Orlando roadways made me laugh so hard!!!! 🤣🤣🤣I served my LDS mission in Orlando. I had to ask may parents for a GPS, which I'd never needed before as a SLC native. Seriously, who designed those roads???
Yeah, I’ve never been to slc, but I’ve visited Chicago many times and have always loved how easy it is to navigate their simple grid street layout, whereas the town I grew up in is a very small midwestern city along one of the smaller rivers that feeds in to The Mississippi and for some reason the layout just seems like they decided at random whether to align the city along the river, the railroads, a simple cardinal direction grid, or, as you mentioned, just a random mess of spaghetti noodles, because as you go between neighborhoods, the layout seems to just change back and forth for no reason (I also visited Orlando for the first time last year, and I was so glad once I checked out a map of the city that I wasn’t one of the authorized drivers on our rental agreement)
Utah folklorist here: the wide streets were more likely to contain fires more easily to city blocks rather than jumping streets and threatening the whole city. I believe it was Wilford Woodruff who clarified that in a letter.
@@jeffbybee5207 Yes. That's the story I hear most often, and perhaps there's a subconcious reason why the story is disseminated more often than the fire preventative idea, I'm only pointing out that there are alternative narratives according to other sources and suggest that the wide roads of Utah have a significant impact on the cultural narrative of the state.
I always heard it was specifically for a full team of oxen to be able to turn around, because they used big ass teams of oxen and big ass wagons to move quarried stone to the temple site, and other construction needs, but the fire thing sounds very practical.
@@devenbs1993 I think the fire thing makes more sense because the blocks aren't that big, so it shouldn't be too hard to just make another pass around the block. Also oxen are really hard to get to turn around. Come to think of it, I can't imagine why the plan would be to use oxen as a primary mode of transport once they settled into a city. For long journeys they're cheaper and have better fortitude than horses, but otherwise they were mostly used for heavy labor away from cities, right? It's just a guess. Both reasons could be practical, but I think fire prevention seems more sensible the longer I consider them.
@@lemueljr1496 I definitely believe you, but as a Utah native the oxen story is what I was told as a kid. As far as I know teams of oxen were used to transport heavy construction material and quarried stone.
4:50 Deseret is a Mormon term, meaning of the hive. They likened themselves to a colony of bees, building & producing. That is why Utah is called the beehive state. I wondered about this for decades, until I started trucking in Utah regularly. The road layout was explained to me by a local Utah driver. Gotta give those early settlers credit. They were very ingenious !
@@siberianmckinney that’s interesting. I’ve read the book Under the Banner of Heaven. It was a really interesting look at their history and belief origins
So in Salt Lake City, the streets are referred to by their number, starting as mentioned in the video at Temple Square. However, something that often confuses visitors is how the names are written as opposed to how they are spoken aloud. "300 West" on a map or street sign is "Third West" when spoken aloud. "2100 South" is "Twenty-First South." North, South, and West Temple are the streets that border Temple Square to the respective directions, and Main Street borders Temple Square on the east. "100 East" is actually "State Street," which leads up to the Capitol Building. So if you wanted to know where the Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Library is, I would tell you it's at "Fourth South and Second East," that is four blocks south and two blocks east of Temple Square.
Likewise in Davis County a bit north, when you travel through different cities, the roads change names. SR 126 through Syracuse, Clearfield and Sunset changes names from State St. to Main St. and back a few times. I'm from L.A. and actually find it easier to navigate the streets there. Sure the streets (mostly residential) can stop and start but they are in a grid pattern so you know geographically where you are. But if you want to really get lost in L.A. go north to Santa Clarita and look at its street map! Looks like a bowl of spaghetti as the roads there follow the contour of the very hilly terrain.
I'm a Salt Lake City native, grew up at 255 S 1135 W with I-80 at the end of my street on one side and the Jordan River cutting kitty-corner at the other end. Anyway, the way I've conceptualized the way we describe the streets I think of it as dollars and cents. Yeah, 4th S is technically 400 S but it is four full units (or blocks) south of Temple Square. The last two digits, like with U.S. currency is to specify fractions of a block. So if instead of being at exactly 4th S you were located at 410 South, you would be 1/10th of a block further south than 4th S. At 450 S you'd be a half block further away. Important to know that the size of a block is 1/8th of a mile. So 8 blocks, for instance 8th S is 1 mile away from the south side of Temple Square. It is relatively easy to measure distance in the valley by knowing this as it is consistent (relatively, some streets aren't exactly straight yet don't change number designation) throughout the valley.
@@gameface6091 that is how I explained it to my wife when we moved here (She is an AZ native, I was raised in Utah.) I told her to imagine a decimal before the last two digits. 400 East becomes 4.00 East or 10600 South becomes 106.00 South. But I like your explanation of thinking about as currency!
I've waited so long for this! As a out of state and non-LDS student at the U, I've absolutely fallen in love with Salt Lake City and Utah. I'm so happy you did a breakdown on the map!
Those obscenely wide streets have allowed for a lot of modern urban amenities to flourish in the city. For example, it has allowed for wide sidewalks that provide space for landscaping, benches, etc. It’s allowed for the easy construction of light rail lines right on busy streets. Bike lanes were easily implemented with so much space to work with. Angled street parking has been added to what has essentially become restaurant/night life district. State Street was even turned into a river during historic flooding in the 1980’s!
And yet, when there were only two automobiles in the entire state of Utah, they managed to have a head-on collision in those wide streets of Salt Lake City.
Have lived in Salt Lake for 30 years and just learned more from this 9 minute video than I did from any Utah history class I ever took. 10/10 beehives.
As a geography geek, I dug this video. I love cultural geography and maps and historical info. SLC is one of my favorite cities. Always managed to stop off on my travels and explore. The wide streets, leafy east side neighborhoods and beautiful location always entranced me. Good work
@@Fireneedsair As a Utahan same. We have some great organizations trying to save it though. Save our Great Salt Lake and friends of the great salt lake are doing great work
Yes, SLC is booming. But at a huge cost, unfortunately: As you mentioned, the Great Salt Lake is drying up, a phenomenon that's happening to many terminal lakes across the globe. We started researching for a new video about it and realized that the case for the GSL is unique and alarming: the exposed soil underneath its water could eventually make the city unliveable very soon. People need to be aware of that bc there are still viable measures to prevent such a scenario.
Worth mentioning is Samuel Newhouse, an early-20th century millionaire who financed many of the buildings in the Exchange Place Historic District (400 S/Main St). This area was intentionally built as a counter to the LDS-owned business areas centered around Temple Square. Even today, you can feel the difference between the northern side of downtown and the southern side on a Friday or Saturday night. City Creek and the areas around it close early while the Exchange Place has an active bar and restaurant scene late into the night.
Growing up in Salt Lake Valley, the grid system was taken for granted. When I first studied Cartesian coordinates, I was pleasantly surprised that I already knew how they worked. Just like Salt Lake City’s street system.
It's weird but I live in Australia, Cairns Australia to be exact and yet for some years now I've had a fascination with Salt Lake City and the LDS church, especially LDS Temple Architecture. I've been to the United States now twice and have visited the usual spots like LA, San Fran, NYC, Philly, DC, Chicago and of course Las Vegas. Las Vegas was the closest I got to Mormon Country and I do recall that LV was originally settled by LDSs. That said I found the country around LV more interesting than the City itself. I hope next time to perhaps drive from LA through LV and up into Utah and Salt Lake City and find out why this mountain city is in my thoughts and dreams so often. Great Video BTW.
One more note. I would suggest doing it in Spring or early summer when the air is clean. Air quality here gets bad due to inversions in winter and wildfire smoke late summer it makes the landscape virtually non-existent
Utah resident here, currently planning a trip to Cairns! Utah is one of the most astoundingly beautiful places in the world, be sure to stop at Zion & Bryce Canyon national parks on your next road trip to the “City of Saints.” Moab in the eastern part of the state is also stunning.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints and someone who just moved to Utah I found this super cool! Its not very often you get to learn so much about why where you live is the way it is! Also I really appreciated the respect he used when talking about the church and the name of the church!
Yes! The map explained videos are what gives Bright Trip an edge over other youtube travel/edu content! And it’s cool you talked with a local expert for this one - the kind of resource that might be an institution in a town but unknown to everyone else.
You don't need to apologize or explain that you're going to get to something...you always have a well thought out presentation in your map vids. Ignore any negative or overly critical comments unless they are genuinely constructive. Please continue making them...a few of my friends and I are hooked!
Originally from Philadelphia, I've lived here in Salt Lake City for more than a decade. The roads are fantastic with how large they are, allow for a lot of two-lane thoroughfares in the middle of the city, and give it more a spacious look; i've never seen a city that was built around the mountains with such beauty and design. Thank you for noting the dwindling water supply in the area. The pollution out here is getting out of hand. This place is the perfect geological situation for pollution to linger. They are already enlarging I-15 and I-80 for the expected people moving out of Caledonia; learn from your lessons and don't consume all the water!!! Salt Lake is probably one of the most uniquely beautiful places in the U.S., and it seems people have figured that out recently, something I wish was still a secret. Great video.
This was cool! It was like watching a Johnny Harris video but without the orange jacket. The music, the maps, the way you apologize for stuff, the story telling... just like him. He would be proud
Let me say, living in the Salt Lake Valley, this layout is great! A lot of the time you can spit out an XXXXX S and XXXXX W/E and be able to instantly know where to go without maps, all within the greater salt lake area.
Random fact: I took an SLC walking tour couple months ago and the guide told me that Fort Douglas is the only US Fort that is facing "inward" (towards the city) because the mormons were the sole thread!
Born and raised here and I always love learning new small things about this city and state. Little different perspective being of migrant decent. Small things in this video are common knowledge to the people who's family have been here from the start. Thanks for this! Definitely subscribing
I really enjoyed this video. I’m a sucker for maps and this one struck home for me. When i was a kid, back in 1988, we moved to SLC from Oregon. Lived in the east bench. I graduated high school there and later from the ‘U’. I moved away in 2001 and never moved back. As an adult thought I would still return to visit my dad until his passing last year. Well done.
I learned about the Mormon Grid and Plat of Zion of when I traveled in Utah a few years ago, but I never learned all this. Fascinating and well done video!!
The local legend is that Brigham Young wanted the streets wide enough that an 8-oxen team could pull a U-turn so easily that the ladies in the shops on either side wouldn't have to hear the drivers resort to profanity.
I don't get any of these comments complaining that he didn't cover most of SLC's history. It's a video about the formation of the SLC map not whyrubuttfrustrated about Mormons and that's coming from an atheist that grew up in SLC. Growing up here spoils you to a very easily navigated city, if you can understand a X,Y axis. The biggest mountains are on the east side so you always know which way is true north. As a kid there was a couple times I snuck out late to go to my gf's house in the middle of the night. I had to go down some dodgy streets to avoid patrolling cop cars and I became lost. That is until I hit the next street sign which I immediately knew which direction was true north. I really never knew how mentally grounding it is living here. When I lived in Portland for a year it was so discombobulating. My head always felt like a spinning compass because I could never just look about and know what my orientation to the planet was. You wouldn't think such a simple thing would make you feel more/less confident but it was really significant. Didn't help that the streets there are super super tiny compared to SLC and It took such a long ass time to cover any distance in Portland. Plenty of things that I don't like about Mormonism but I cannot deny the cities advantages when a mostly singular entity had control about the street design and expansion. Another funny thing about growing up here is I used to be like most people complaining and gripping about Utah's liquor laws, that you should be able to buy alcohol from any store/time etc. When I went on my first road trip to California right after joining my fraternity. I was actually really bothered that almost every single store, outlet, grocery, gas etc. was selling more alcohol than whatever store they purported to be. It really opened my eyes to how normalized alcoholism is in the USA. It just felt grimy and trashy that alcohol was plastered everywhere. I stopped drinking about a decade ago and I can't imagine how much worse and obnoxious it would be living somewhere that I'd just be staring at liquor bottles any time I went out. Grew up resenting it, now I'm actually grateful for it. It's actually kind of surprising that I've never heard of AA promoting moving to places like SLC where the temptation would be night and day for any recovering alcoholic.
This is my first time ever seeing one of your videos and was curious when i saw your thumbnail on this video because i am from and still live in Salt Lake City. Your video was so well done (akin to Johnny Harris videos) and this is the first time I've subscribed to someone's channel after just one video. I'm excited to watch many more of your videos too. Great job!
Great video! I like your style, especially the way you treated what could be seen as sensitive topics. I had always wondered why the avenues seemed more crowded than the proper. The more you know
@@chrisbarney1609 Here is a write up about it. Growing up, I was always told that it was miners and workers and not Mormon settlers who lived in the area. That may be anecdotal, however. “Salt Lake City was founded in 1847. By the 1850s, rapid growth in industry, crafts, trades, and manufacturing occurred, and with this expansion Salt Lake City shifted from a village to a metropolis. During this transitional stage, the Avenues district of Salt Lake City was established, primarily for artisans, tradesmen, common laborers, and others who desired to live in close proximity to the urban city center. The Avenues, laid out as Plat D of Salt Lake City, was the first section of the municipality to deviate from the original city plan of 10-acre blocks patterned after the “Plat of the City Zion” provided by Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
the naming of the 'jordan river' is interesting. a dead sea connecting a fresh water sea. like in the 'holy land' more interesting to me is that the mormons petitioned the government for the state of "deseret", it was the mormons preferred name for the region.. a name from the 'book of mormon' but it was rejected by the US government in favor of "utah" which was derived from the Ute Indian Language meaning people of the mountains.. but the navajo meaning of Utah was 'upper' or higher up' as they referenced the shoshone people. So in Isaiah 2:2 it says "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills" so in a way, the Us governments decision to name the region 'Utah' only reinforced(by accident) or validated what the mormons were trying to establish. It seemed to fulfill prophecy.
As a Non-Mormon resident of SLC since I was born this showed me a bunch of cool facts I didn’t know about. The separation of church and quite frankly ANYTHING else here is very very thin. Lots of places close on Sunday’s (including City Creek) and there’s and LDS church by almost every elementary school that I can think of. They even offer a Seminary (LDS) class that you earn 0 Credits for in High School that a lot of Mormon’s do end up taking 😂 Cool video!
@@jacobjonesofmagna I'm a non-mormon living in Utah and I don't feel that way at all. Sure you can say that a lot of people here seem fake, but this is an amazing state and I've never felt like a second class citizen or that I have to pretend to be happy.
@@gagegarlitz1962 Since getting out of majority Mormon communities in the Salt Lake Valley, I can feel a lot more content and a lot less frankly prejudiced against Mormon *people* as well. But my mom and I were poor getting patronized by missionaries and local Mormons. They can be pushy, and frankly mean, when they're looking down on you. So I developed a bad bias very young. I understand how I come across but I would like to express that I love Utah and the Oquirrh Mountain areas specifically will always feel like home.
I think you forgot to talk about the how the street names are named how they are! You briefly mentioned the names but I feel like that’s an important part you missed about the history. Why are they sized the way they are (hint: why are they 100 E or 1200 S and not named Main Ave or something?
The LDS church split into about 7 different groups after Joseph Smith died. Brigham's group was just one of these and the rest stayed in the same area. The reason they came to the Salt Lake City area was because it was part of Mexico and Brigham Young wanted to create his own nation called Deseret which would have been Utah, Nevada, Southern California, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. This was undone by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which made all this area US territory. Utah kept getting shrunk down to its current size because of the gold rush in California and the silver rush in Nevada. Also, Salt Lake City wasn't the original capitol of Utah. It was Fillmore which is smack dab in the middle of Utah. But, yeah, this is why SLC is on the grid system that we still have today. You just gotta get used to locals calling streets like 3300 south "33rd south" which we do for all of them
8:30 the horse and carriage thing is true, and Brigham Young expected it of all the cities, even Lehi. In fact, it is in the histories that he told David Evans (my great great grandfather) that Lehi (who had already built their business streets close together) was to push their businesses back. They refused to do this thing, and that’s why Pioneer Crossing eventually had to be built.
I was just at Niagara Falls and got to talk to someone from salt lake city he couldn't believe the amount of freshwater that flows over Niagara Falls each Second I live by Lake Erie in Ohio Lake Erie water levels have been high for 4 years now I was at Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario thus summer as well definitely no lack of low water still higher than normal.
I remember flying to Chicago once and I fell asleep on the plane. When I woke up we were about to land and we were turning around over that thing you guys call a lake. I spent about 3 minutes in my head arguing with myself about how we could've gotten so far off track to be turning around somewhere way off the east coast that all I could see was the 'Atlantic Ocean'.
@@nargly8208 Great Lakes will do that definitely not the average Lakes especially Lake Michigan it feels like the Atlantic Ocean other Great Lakes I don't get that same feeling
I love the grid system and as a teenager in the mid 70’s, I was a delivery driver for a local printing company. The grid system made it so easy to locate my destinations, and GPS hasn’t even a thought then. Years later I took a job delivering pizzas outside of the original grid, and it was far more difficult to find my customers. Again, no GPS.
Something not covered in the video is how the numbering system works but changes depending on which side of temple square you are on. For example, When you are on a East-West street like South Temple, and you are East of Main St. the even numbered addresses are on one side. Go West of Main St. and they change to the other side of the street. The same is true for North-South streets. The dividing streets in Salt Lake City, are South Temple and Main St.
I was helping my son move from NY to California for grad school, and we took turns driving. The car broke down coming over the mountains into Salt Lake City. It took them three days to fix it. So we looked around the city a little bit. I was expecting a grim theocracy, but it turned out to be pleasant enough. The planetarium was fun. And there was a Brazilian "rodizio" restaurant in the mall, and the food was pretty decent. But I was still glad to get back on the highway.
Whenever I visit Utah and somebody tells me a named street, the very first thing I do (anybody does) is ask what north or east (or whatever) that named street is. Because then you can just head in the grid direction until you're almost at your destination. No map or GPS needed in Salt Lake.
Yes, and that has always been the name. For quite a while though people knew the church better through the nickname Mormon, which has a weird history of being like, a reclaimed slur just from what I remember of LDS church history. But recently the Prophet of the Church has asked people to use the full name of the church rather than its nicknames. All us Utahns still slip up though, so I don't blame others who don't quite understand it all and still call us the nicknames.
Yeah, same in German: "Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage", short: HLT. But they build "normal churches" (looks like a christian church) as a temple here in Germany. Interesting that they self named as "christian" but they be not a part of The Highest Christian Church Council. Funny that they try to make an own country but the troops of the U.S.A. are stronger after they not can be soldier same all other hard religious group (except muslims of course)!
I was born and raised in SLC, and I haven't travelled either, and as much as I love this video, I'm SO confused. Is this not how other places are?? How are other states organized?? I'm so confused and curious
at around 2:20 in the video, he mentions that the LDS Church is "formerly known" as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The wording here should be: "Properly known as"
actually the capitol building was originally built downtown but in 1960 thousands of people gathered together to haul it brick by brick up to capitol hill. I can't remember where I read that
So fun making this about my home! Utah is so unique, I love it.
This feels incomplete in the sense that I could have watched you talk about this for another hour
@@jrom2189 This is such a high compliment thank you so much 🙏
@@jrom2189 😂 Agreed!
Hello fellow Utahn! Lol
Hi fellow utahns
As an SLC transplant, I'll say this - the grid and naming system makes it so easy to find your way around and instantly know where a place is, based just on its address. Coming from Orlando - which was apparently laid out in homage to a spilled bowl of spaghetti, it was a nice change.
You're description of Orlando roadways made me laugh so hard!!!! 🤣🤣🤣I served my LDS mission in Orlando. I had to ask may parents for a GPS, which I'd never needed before as a SLC native. Seriously, who designed those roads???
Only those who relinquish all claims to goodness and acknowledge they are ungodly are candidates for justification (Luke 5:32)
Yeah, I’ve never been to slc, but I’ve visited Chicago many times and have always loved how easy it is to navigate their simple grid street layout, whereas the town I grew up in is a very small midwestern city along one of the smaller rivers that feeds in to The Mississippi and for some reason the layout just seems like they decided at random whether to align the city along the river, the railroads, a simple cardinal direction grid, or, as you mentioned, just a random mess of spaghetti noodles, because as you go between neighborhoods, the layout seems to just change back and forth for no reason (I also visited Orlando for the first time last year, and I was so glad once I checked out a map of the city that I wasn’t one of the authorized drivers on our rental agreement)
Lol that's why I love Chicago's adress system too
Utah folklorist here: the wide streets were more likely to contain fires more easily to city blocks rather than jumping streets and threatening the whole city. I believe it was Wilford Woodruff who clarified that in a letter.
The traditional story is the wide streets were so 6 horse and wagons could turn around with out swearing
@@jeffbybee5207 Yes. That's the story I hear most often, and perhaps there's a subconcious reason why the story is disseminated more often than the fire preventative idea, I'm only pointing out that there are alternative narratives according to other sources and suggest that the wide roads of Utah have a significant impact on the cultural narrative of the state.
I always heard it was specifically for a full team of oxen to be able to turn around, because they used big ass teams of oxen and big ass wagons to move quarried stone to the temple site, and other construction needs, but the fire thing sounds very practical.
@@devenbs1993 I think the fire thing makes more sense because the blocks aren't that big, so it shouldn't be too hard to just make another pass around the block. Also oxen are really hard to get to turn around. Come to think of it, I can't imagine why the plan would be to use oxen as a primary mode of transport once they settled into a city. For long journeys they're cheaper and have better fortitude than horses, but otherwise they were mostly used for heavy labor away from cities, right? It's just a guess. Both reasons could be practical, but I think fire prevention seems more sensible the longer I consider them.
@@lemueljr1496 I definitely believe you, but as a Utah native the oxen story is what I was told as a kid.
As far as I know teams of oxen were used to transport heavy construction material and quarried stone.
4:50 Deseret is a Mormon term, meaning of the hive. They likened themselves to a colony of bees, building & producing.
That is why Utah is called the beehive state.
I wondered about this for decades, until I started trucking in Utah regularly. The road layout was explained to me by a local Utah driver.
Gotta give those early settlers credit. They were very ingenious !
Well, they may have gotten help from some magic golden tablets
@@chrism6880 Joseph Smith starting a new religion because some tablets told him to make a square citty
Oh, that explains why their state highways have a beehive in the background! I've always wondered this on my road trips to Colorado.
The beehive is also a Freemason symbol, and Joseph / Brigham borrowed heavily (read: stole) from Freemason tradition for the religion they invented.
@@siberianmckinney that’s interesting. I’ve read the book Under the Banner of Heaven. It was a really interesting look at their history and belief origins
So in Salt Lake City, the streets are referred to by their number, starting as mentioned in the video at Temple Square. However, something that often confuses visitors is how the names are written as opposed to how they are spoken aloud. "300 West" on a map or street sign is "Third West" when spoken aloud. "2100 South" is "Twenty-First South." North, South, and West Temple are the streets that border Temple Square to the respective directions, and Main Street borders Temple Square on the east. "100 East" is actually "State Street," which leads up to the Capitol Building. So if you wanted to know where the Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Library is, I would tell you it's at "Fourth South and Second East," that is four blocks south and two blocks east of Temple Square.
Likewise in Davis County a bit north, when you travel through different cities, the roads change names. SR 126 through Syracuse, Clearfield and Sunset changes names from State St. to Main St. and back a few times. I'm from L.A. and actually find it easier to navigate the streets there. Sure the streets (mostly residential) can stop and start but they are in a grid pattern so you know geographically where you are. But if you want to really get lost in L.A. go north to Santa Clarita and look at its street map! Looks like a bowl of spaghetti as the roads there follow the contour of the very hilly terrain.
I'm a Salt Lake City native, grew up at 255 S 1135 W with I-80 at the end of my street on one side and the Jordan River cutting kitty-corner at the other end. Anyway, the way I've conceptualized the way we describe the streets I think of it as dollars and cents. Yeah, 4th S is technically 400 S but it is four full units (or blocks) south of Temple Square. The last two digits, like with U.S. currency is to specify fractions of a block. So if instead of being at exactly 4th S you were located at 410 South, you would be 1/10th of a block further south than 4th S. At 450 S you'd be a half block further away.
Important to know that the size of a block is 1/8th of a mile. So 8 blocks, for instance 8th S is 1 mile away from the south side of Temple Square. It is relatively easy to measure distance in the valley by knowing this as it is consistent (relatively, some streets aren't exactly straight yet don't change number designation) throughout the valley.
Washington, DC does the same based from the Capitol Building.
The grid is 0 on top of the Capitol building.
VERY good to know!!
@@gameface6091 that is how I explained it to my wife when we moved here (She is an AZ native, I was raised in Utah.) I told her to imagine a decimal before the last two digits. 400 East becomes 4.00 East or 10600 South becomes 106.00 South. But I like your explanation of thinking about as currency!
I've waited so long for this! As a out of state and non-LDS student at the U, I've absolutely fallen in love with Salt Lake City and Utah. I'm so happy you did a breakdown on the map!
Salt lake is such an amazing city
I love that the road system is determined by the meridian on temple square… it took me a minute as well but haha
@@DanielsimsSteiner it’s alright
Those obscenely wide streets have allowed for a lot of modern urban amenities to flourish in the city. For example, it has allowed for wide sidewalks that provide space for landscaping, benches, etc. It’s allowed for the easy construction of light rail lines right on busy streets. Bike lanes were easily implemented with so much space to work with. Angled street parking has been added to what has essentially become restaurant/night life district. State Street was even turned into a river during historic flooding in the 1980’s!
The flood was 1983. I remember because I was out of Utah that year.
And yet, when there were only two automobiles in the entire state of Utah, they managed to have a head-on collision in those wide streets of Salt Lake City.
Only those who relinquish all claims to goodness and acknowledge they are ungodly are candidates for justification (Luke 5:32)
Have lived in Salt Lake for 30 years and just learned more from this 9 minute video than I did from any Utah history class I ever took. 10/10 beehives.
🐝🐝
Same
Currently a student of Utah history right now and you did an incredible job summing up this period in 8-9 minutes. Great job!
As a geography geek, I dug this video. I love cultural geography and maps and historical info. SLC is one of my favorite cities. Always managed to stop off on my travels and explore. The wide streets, leafy east side neighborhoods and beautiful location always entranced me. Good work
I do worry about the drying salt lake and air quality that will be affected
@@Fireneedsair As a Utahan same. We have some great organizations trying to save it though. Save our Great Salt Lake and friends of the great salt lake are doing great work
Not only is SLC gridded out in large squares, but practically every city and town in Utah has the same layout
Oddly enough so is Minot ND. i was stationed there and town is broke up NW NE SW SE
@@daveg4236 You missed the point.
@@TrendyStone no I didn't.
@@daveg4236 Your comment does.
@@TrendyStone you missed everything
Yes, SLC is booming. But at a huge cost, unfortunately: As you mentioned, the Great Salt Lake is drying up, a phenomenon that's happening to many terminal lakes across the globe. We started researching for a new video about it and realized that the case for the GSL is unique and alarming: the exposed soil underneath its water could eventually make the city unliveable very soon. People need to be aware of that bc there are still viable measures to prevent such a scenario.
That's yet one more analogy with the Dead Sea, which is also shrinking at an incredibly fast rate.
Worth mentioning is Samuel Newhouse, an early-20th century millionaire who financed many of the buildings in the Exchange Place Historic District (400 S/Main St). This area was intentionally built as a counter to the LDS-owned business areas centered around Temple Square. Even today, you can feel the difference between the northern side of downtown and the southern side on a Friday or Saturday night. City Creek and the areas around it close early while the Exchange Place has an active bar and restaurant scene late into the night.
Dude this is like, one of the most well-constructed, interesting, and quality TH-cam videos that I've watched in a minute. Instant subscriber.
This means so much, thank you! And welcome!
Wassup Will
Growing up in Salt Lake Valley, the grid system was taken for granted. When I first studied Cartesian coordinates, I was pleasantly surprised that I already knew how they worked. Just like Salt Lake City’s street system.
I've lived in Utah and Israel, so the thumbnail caught my attention. Awesome video!
you mean palestine
@@cumsquatch8057 You mean Canaan, Isrealites and Philistinians stole that land from the Canaanites.
@@cumsquatch8057no Israel. Screw Hamas
It's weird but I live in Australia, Cairns Australia to be exact and yet for some years now I've had a fascination with Salt Lake City and the LDS church, especially LDS Temple Architecture. I've been to the United States now twice and have visited the usual spots like LA, San Fran, NYC, Philly, DC, Chicago and of course Las Vegas. Las Vegas was the closest I got to Mormon Country and I do recall that LV was originally settled by LDSs. That said I found the country around LV more interesting than the City itself.
I hope next time to perhaps drive from LA through LV and up into Utah and Salt Lake City and find out why this mountain city is in my thoughts and dreams so often.
Great Video BTW.
Absolutely! I suggest you continue North a little after SLC. Ogden, Brigham City, Logan, Bear Lake. Dude I promise it won't disappoint my friend
One more note. I would suggest doing it in Spring or early summer when the air is clean. Air quality here gets bad due to inversions in winter and wildfire smoke late summer it makes the landscape virtually non-existent
Utah resident here, currently planning a trip to Cairns! Utah is one of the most astoundingly beautiful places in the world, be sure to stop at Zion & Bryce Canyon national parks on your next road trip to the “City of Saints.” Moab in the eastern part of the state is also stunning.
Its a really cool place, the temple itself is currently under construction I believe but most everything else is fair game to go and see
Finally! We’ve been waiting for new map explained!
Fellow Utahn here that loves our unique and quirky state (and its history). Please make this a continuing series!
🤝 deal
Great video! Interesting, respectful and informative. It's fun to see the city I live in be explained in such a way.
Thank you very much!
As somebody who also makes tons of videos about Utah, this was a great video. Very well made and well produced. Thanks for sharing our city!
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints and someone who just moved to Utah I found this super cool! Its not very often you get to learn so much about why where you live is the way it is! Also I really appreciated the respect he used when talking about the church and the name of the church!
Yes! The map explained videos are what gives Bright Trip an edge over other youtube travel/edu content!
And it’s cool you talked with a local expert for this one - the kind of resource that might be an institution in a town but unknown to everyone else.
Yess I want to do more interview's like this! Steve is awesome
Totally
You don't need to apologize or explain that you're going to get to something...you always have a well thought out presentation in your map vids. Ignore any negative or overly critical comments unless they are genuinely constructive. Please continue making them...a few of my friends and I are hooked!
Originally from Philadelphia, I've lived here in Salt Lake City for more than a decade. The roads are fantastic with how large they are, allow for a lot of two-lane thoroughfares in the middle of the city, and give it more a spacious look; i've never seen a city that was built around the mountains with such beauty and design.
Thank you for noting the dwindling water supply in the area. The pollution out here is getting out of hand. This place is the perfect geological situation for pollution to linger. They are already enlarging I-15 and I-80 for the expected people moving out of Caledonia; learn from your lessons and don't consume all the water!!!
Salt Lake is probably one of the most uniquely beautiful places in the U.S., and it seems people have figured that out recently, something I wish was still a secret. Great video.
Now out of a drought and pollution is the lowest rate :))
@@KennethAI for now bud. For nowz
Great video! A lot of surprising history in SLC and this makes for a great introduction to it!
This was cool! It was like watching a Johnny Harris video but without the orange jacket. The music, the maps, the way you apologize for stuff, the story telling... just like him. He would be proud
Let me say, living in the Salt Lake Valley, this layout is great! A lot of the time you can spit out an XXXXX S and XXXXX W/E and be able to instantly know where to go without maps, all within the greater salt lake area.
It’s just really fun to see videos about my state, it feels like no one talks about it
You should do a whole bunch of cities like this. I watch your videos before visiting a city!
Thank you for sharing map explainers + history like this! So useful!
Thanks for treating the LDS church fairly. Great video. Subscribed.
Random fact: I took an SLC walking tour couple months ago and the guide told me that Fort Douglas is the only US Fort that is facing "inward" (towards the city) because the mormons were the sole thread!
Ohhh a walking tour in SLC sounds amazing
Your guide is wrong
Come on!!! A longer version of this video please!!!!
All my favorite things: maps, Salt Lake City, and black cherry Fresca. Thanks for an awesome video!
You have very good taste, my friend. I just discovered black cherry Fresca and I’m addicted. It’s incredible.
Born and raised here and I always love learning new small things about this city and state. Little different perspective being of migrant decent. Small things in this video are common knowledge to the people who's family have been here from the start. Thanks for this! Definitely subscribing
Love living in Utah. Fantastic place. Takes me 20 minutes to get to my favorite ski resort. I'm there with the fam every winter weekend.
Please do Savannah, it has a very unique map/city design that unfortunately very few places in the US have followed
Savannah has definitely got a lot to explain and dive into! That would be an interesting video!
Oooh I love this idea
Honestly such a beautiful city
I really enjoyed this video. I’m a sucker for maps and this one struck home for me.
When i was a kid, back in 1988, we moved to SLC from Oregon. Lived in the east bench. I graduated high school there and later from the ‘U’. I moved away in 2001 and never moved back. As an adult thought I would still return to visit my dad until his passing last year.
Well done.
I learned about the Mormon Grid and Plat of Zion of when I traveled in Utah a few years ago, but I never learned all this. Fascinating and well done video!!
I actually found this quite interesting. I would really enjoy a whole series on how certain cities were planned and laid out.
In the works as we speak... 🤫
The local legend is that Brigham Young wanted the streets wide enough that an 8-oxen team could pull a U-turn so easily that the ladies in the shops on either side wouldn't have to hear the drivers resort to profanity.
Makes sense why neighborhoods like rose park has huge streets
The video turned out amazing man
Thank you!
I don't get any of these comments complaining that he didn't cover most of SLC's history. It's a video about the formation of the SLC map not whyrubuttfrustrated about Mormons and that's coming from an atheist that grew up in SLC. Growing up here spoils you to a very easily navigated city, if you can understand a X,Y axis. The biggest mountains are on the east side so you always know which way is true north. As a kid there was a couple times I snuck out late to go to my gf's house in the middle of the night. I had to go down some dodgy streets to avoid patrolling cop cars and I became lost. That is until I hit the next street sign which I immediately knew which direction was true north.
I really never knew how mentally grounding it is living here. When I lived in Portland for a year it was so discombobulating. My head always felt like a spinning compass because I could never just look about and know what my orientation to the planet was. You wouldn't think such a simple thing would make you feel more/less confident but it was really significant. Didn't help that the streets there are super super tiny compared to SLC and It took such a long ass time to cover any distance in Portland. Plenty of things that I don't like about Mormonism but I cannot deny the cities advantages when a mostly singular entity had control about the street design and expansion.
Another funny thing about growing up here is I used to be like most people complaining and gripping about Utah's liquor laws, that you should be able to buy alcohol from any store/time etc. When I went on my first road trip to California right after joining my fraternity. I was actually really bothered that almost every single store, outlet, grocery, gas etc. was selling more alcohol than whatever store they purported to be. It really opened my eyes to how normalized alcoholism is in the USA. It just felt grimy and trashy that alcohol was plastered everywhere. I stopped drinking about a decade ago and I can't imagine how much worse and obnoxious it would be living somewhere that I'd just be staring at liquor bottles any time I went out. Grew up resenting it, now I'm actually grateful for it. It's actually kind of surprising that I've never heard of AA promoting moving to places like SLC where the temptation would be night and day for any recovering alcoholic.
This is my first time ever seeing one of your videos and was curious when i saw your thumbnail on this video because i am from and still live in Salt Lake City. Your video was so well done (akin to Johnny Harris videos) and this is the first time I've subscribed to someone's channel after just one video. I'm excited to watch many more of your videos too. Great job!
Awesome video! Utah and SLC are some of the best kept secrets on the planet for their natural beauty hope we can save the GSL.
Great video! I like your style, especially the way you treated what could be seen as sensitive topics. I had always wondered why the avenues seemed more crowded than the proper. The more you know
I live in Salt Lake City. The grid system is perfect. Love it.
What a great city!
The Avenues were housing for miners and people who were not Mormon. It has always been the home for artists, students,university professors, etc.
It's a cool neighborhood but not sure that's actually true
@@chrisbarney1609 Here is a write up about it. Growing up, I was always told that it was miners and workers and not Mormon settlers who lived in the area. That may be anecdotal, however. “Salt Lake City was founded in 1847. By the 1850s, rapid growth in industry, crafts, trades, and manufacturing occurred, and with this expansion Salt Lake City shifted from a village to a metropolis. During this transitional stage, the Avenues district of Salt Lake City was established, primarily for artisans, tradesmen, common laborers, and others who desired to live in close proximity to the urban city center. The Avenues, laid out as Plat D of Salt Lake City, was the first section of the municipality to deviate from the original city plan of 10-acre blocks patterned after the “Plat of the City Zion” provided by Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
Hometown!
Thank you so much for making this video.. Born and raised here and how much I love my home here what a great state this is. This is the Place!
This was so interesting! So glad I found your channel, keep up the good work!
Weird I was subscribed to you awhile ago. Not sure why I wasn't anymore. Glad to see your videos again!
Welcome back 🤝
This is so cool. I'm a native utahn and love history
As an SLC native I loved this. Fascinating. I felt like it was finished though! I wanted more.. haha
Giving me Johnny Harris vibes, loves it
Johnny's one of Bright Trip's founders!
@@BrightTripTravel makes sense. Since I like his vids n these vids. And this guy
Visited SLC for the first time last winter season. The skiing here is absolutely amazing and I’m mad at myself for not discovering it sooner 😅
Great information ! Thank you,
Nice video! Giving me Johnny Harris vibes! 😊
Yessss...Johnny is one of Bright Trip's founders!
An excellent presentation. Thank you. I learned more in this video than all that I've been taught in school.
hey man you should do Portland OR! It seems to be super interesting
Excellent subject, content, and videography. Phenominal
Salk Lake City is such a beautiful city. It may be a small city, but it's very influential for its size
As a Utah native, I didn't realize this wasn't normal in other states lol
Same haha. Took me a while to realize just how good we have it
Love how you make history interesting
Love your content ❤
I would have spent an hour watching this. Well done.
Thank you so much! More to come
Great video!
Native Utahan (actually didn't know how to spell that, english is weird. Utahn was my first attempt). Great video. will like and subscribe.
Thank you! And welcome ☺️
Great video. The temple square and the Utah Capitol are les than a mile away. May be in old times, they thought it was far enough.
Loved this video! Learned a lot about the city I've called home for 6 years now
the naming of the 'jordan river' is interesting. a dead sea connecting a fresh water sea. like in the 'holy land'
more interesting to me is that the mormons petitioned the government for the state of "deseret", it was the mormons preferred name for the region.. a name from the 'book of mormon' but it was rejected by the US government in favor of "utah" which was derived from the Ute Indian Language meaning people of the mountains.. but the navajo meaning of Utah was 'upper' or higher up' as they referenced the shoshone people.
So in Isaiah 2:2 it says "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills"
so in a way, the Us governments decision to name the region 'Utah' only reinforced(by accident) or validated what the mormons were trying to establish. It seemed to fulfill prophecy.
The streets in SLC are so wide, you almost need a map to find your way across the street. 😁
Thanks for the great upload, very professionally produced.
I thought of giving a nickname to the Great Salt Lake. It's the "Dead Sea of Utah." But, the offical nickname is "America's Dead Sea."
I have always been confused when looking at Salt Lake City on google maps, thanks!
What did the natives call “the Jordan river” before the settlers?????🤔🤔
As a Non-Mormon resident of SLC since I was born this showed me a bunch of cool facts I didn’t know about. The separation of church and quite frankly ANYTHING else here is very very thin. Lots of places close on Sunday’s (including City Creek) and there’s and LDS church by almost every elementary school that I can think of. They even offer a Seminary (LDS) class that you earn 0 Credits for in High School that a lot of Mormon’s do end up taking 😂
Cool video!
That seminary class they offer in highschool was called nap period for me and I don't think I'd of made it through highschool without it!
Non-Mormon Utah resident pride
Love being regarded as a second-class citizen because I'm not pretending to be happy constantly
@@jacobjonesofmagna I'm a non-mormon living in Utah and I don't feel that way at all. Sure you can say that a lot of people here seem fake, but this is an amazing state and I've never felt like a second class citizen or that I have to pretend to be happy.
@@gagegarlitz1962 Since getting out of majority Mormon communities in the Salt Lake Valley, I can feel a lot more content and a lot less frankly prejudiced against Mormon *people* as well. But my mom and I were poor getting patronized by missionaries and local Mormons. They can be pushy, and frankly mean, when they're looking down on you. So I developed a bad bias very young. I understand how I come across but I would like to express that I love Utah and the Oquirrh Mountain areas specifically will always feel like home.
Fantastic video about the place I now call home!
I think you forgot to talk about the how the street names are named how they are! You briefly mentioned the names but I feel like that’s an important part you missed about the history. Why are they sized the way they are (hint: why are they 100 E or 1200 S and not named Main Ave or something?
Very true! So hard to cover everything. Maybe for another video
@@BrightTripTravel Okay perfect
The LDS church split into about 7 different groups after Joseph Smith died. Brigham's group was just one of these and the rest stayed in the same area. The reason they came to the Salt Lake City area was because it was part of Mexico and Brigham Young wanted to create his own nation called Deseret which would have been Utah, Nevada, Southern California, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. This was undone by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which made all this area US territory. Utah kept getting shrunk down to its current size because of the gold rush in California and the silver rush in Nevada. Also, Salt Lake City wasn't the original capitol of Utah. It was Fillmore which is smack dab in the middle of Utah. But, yeah, this is why SLC is on the grid system that we still have today. You just gotta get used to locals calling streets like 3300 south "33rd south" which we do for all of them
Thanks for the additional details! The Capitol being in the center of the state is so fascinating
Interesting. Thanks for sharing! SLC is a beautiful city in a beautiful state.
8:30 the horse and carriage thing is true, and Brigham Young expected it of all the cities, even Lehi. In fact, it is in the histories that he told David Evans (my great great grandfather) that Lehi (who had already built their business streets close together) was to push their businesses back. They refused to do this thing, and that’s why Pioneer Crossing eventually had to be built.
Very comprehensive!
Such a good video!
I was just at Niagara Falls and got to talk to someone from salt lake city he couldn't believe the amount of freshwater that flows over Niagara Falls each Second I live by Lake Erie in Ohio Lake Erie water levels have been high for 4 years now I was at Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario thus summer as well definitely no lack of low water still higher than normal.
I remember flying to Chicago once and I fell asleep on the plane. When I woke up we were about to land and we were turning around over that thing you guys call a lake.
I spent about 3 minutes in my head arguing with myself about how we could've gotten so far off track to be turning around somewhere way off the east coast that all I could see was the 'Atlantic Ocean'.
@@nargly8208 Great Lakes will do that definitely not the average Lakes especially Lake Michigan it feels like the Atlantic Ocean other Great Lakes I don't get that same feeling
I love the grid system and as a teenager in the mid 70’s, I was a delivery driver for a local printing company. The grid system made it so easy to locate my destinations, and GPS hasn’t even a thought then. Years later I took a job delivering pizzas outside of the original grid, and it was far more difficult to find my customers. Again, no GPS.
This guy is like a younger Johnny Harris. Love it
That man in the tie seemed so pleasant!
Something not covered in the video is how the numbering system works but changes depending on which side of temple square you are on. For example, When you are on a East-West street like South Temple, and you are East of Main St. the even numbered addresses are on one side. Go West of Main St. and they change to the other side of the street. The same is true for North-South streets. The dividing streets in Salt Lake City, are South Temple and Main St.
I was helping my son move from NY to California for grad school, and we took turns driving. The car broke down coming over the mountains into Salt Lake City. It took them three days to fix it. So we looked around the city a little bit. I was expecting a grim theocracy, but it turned out to be pleasant enough. The planetarium was fun. And there was a Brazilian "rodizio" restaurant in the mall, and the food was pretty decent. But I was still glad to get back on the highway.
Whenever I visit Utah and somebody tells me a named street, the very first thing I do (anybody does) is ask what north or east (or whatever) that named street is. Because then you can just head in the grid direction until you're almost at your destination. No map or GPS needed in Salt Lake.
SLC was very cool when Port O call was around. Very important piece of history.
It's actually pretty neat. No other cult built a city that has lasted 150 years.
Which definition of cult are you using here?
I think they are still called the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. Isn’t that name on all their buildings?
Yes, and that has always been the name. For quite a while though people knew the church better through the nickname Mormon, which has a weird history of being like, a reclaimed slur just from what I remember of LDS church history. But recently the Prophet of the Church has asked people to use the full name of the church rather than its nicknames. All us Utahns still slip up though, so I don't blame others who don't quite understand it all and still call us the nicknames.
Yeah, same in German: "Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage", short: HLT. But they build "normal churches" (looks like a christian church) as a temple here in Germany. Interesting that they self named as "christian" but they be not a part of The Highest Christian Church Council. Funny that they try to make an own country but the troops of the U.S.A. are stronger after they not can be soldier same all other hard religious group (except muslims of course)!
incredible video
You’re incredible.
I was born and raised in SLC, and I haven't travelled either, and as much as I love this video, I'm SO confused. Is this not how other places are?? How are other states organized?? I'm so confused and curious
at around 2:20 in the video, he mentions that the LDS Church is "formerly known" as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The wording here should be: "Properly known as"
Thank you for pointing this out! He says ‘formally’ but it definitely sounds very close to ‘formerly’.
A while ago it was shortened to just "the church of jesus christ" omitting of latter day saints
@@Whitehorse_crimefighter I'm a member of the church. I think I know my own name
@@BrightTripTravel I heard the word formerly too. Thanks for the clarification 👍
You gotta do Dallas!!!!!
actually the capitol building was originally built downtown but in 1960 thousands of people gathered together to haul it brick by brick up to capitol hill. I can't remember where I read that