Few state histories have been influenced by a single religious community as profoundly as is the case with Utah. While hardly the only group to shape the state’s history, it is nonetheless difficult to comprehend Utah history without understanding early Mormonism. Early Mormons emerged as a distinctive faith community that can be understood as a creative engagement with their historical contexts. The experience of Mormon settlement in Utah Territory, in other words, was undertaken both in light of the Mormons’ religious goals and within the shadow of a bitter story of Mormon/non-Mormon conflict before 1847. (J. Spencer Fluman)

Once in the Great Basin, Mormons built communities, farmed, ranched.