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City of Provo Official Website
Provo is the county seat of Utah and is located along the Wasatch Front.
History
The Provo area was originally called Timpanogas, a Numic (Ute) word perhaps meaning "rock river". The area was inhabited by the Timpanogos. It was the largest and most settled area in modern-day Utah. The ample food from the Provo River made the Timpanogos a peaceful people. The area also served as the traditional meeting place for the Ute and Shoshone tribes and as a spot to worship their creator.
Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante, a Spanish Franciscan missionary-explorer, is considered the first European explorer to have visited the area, in 1776. He was guided by two Timpanogos Utes, whom he called Silvestre and Joaquin. Escalante chronicled this first European exploration across the Great Basin Desert. The Europeans did not build a permanent settlement, but traded with the Timpanogos whom they called Lagunas (lake people) or Come Pescado (fish eaters).
In 1847, the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, which was just north of Timpanogos Mountain. At first, they were friendly with the Mormons. But, as relations deteriorated with the Shoshoni and Utes because of disputes over land and cattle, tensions rose. Because of the reported stolen goods of settlers by the Utes, Brigham Young gave a small militia orders "to take such measures as would put a final end to their [Indian] depredations in future." This ended in what is known as the Battle Creek Massacre, in modern-day Pleasant Grove, Utah.
The Mormons continued pushing into Timpanog lands. In 1849, 33 Mormon families from Salt Lake City established Fort Utah. In 1850, Brigham Young sent an army from Salt Lake to drive out the Timpanogos in what is called the Provo War. The ruthlessness of the Mormon invaders angered the Timpanog, which contributed to the Walker War.[citation needed] Fort Utah was renamed Provo in 1850 for Étienne Provost, an early French-Canadian trapper who arrived in the region in 1825.
1850 saw the construction of the first school house in Provo, built within Utah Fort.
As more Latter-day Saints moved in Provo quickly grew as a city. It soon came to be nicknamed The Garden City with the large number of fruit orchards and gardens there.
1872 saw the railroad reach Provo. It was also this year that the Provo Woolen Mills opened. They were the first large factory in Provo and employed about 150 people, initially mainly skilled textile laborers who had immigrated from Britain.
City of Orem Official Website
At one time the area was known as Sharon, a Biblical name for a mostly level strip of land running between mountains and the sea, and the name of the Vermont birth town of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Another former name was Provo Bench. In an apparent attempt to attract more investment to the town and provide an easy way for the large population of farmers with orchards to ship produce, in 1914 it was named after Walter C. Orem, President of the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad in the early 1900s. Orem was incorporated on May 5, 1919.
Orem is known as "Family City, USA"' and is renowned for the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, and its Summerfest celebration and parade in June is a popular local attraction.
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