Mormons Move West

Joseph Smith was born in Sharon Vermont, on December 23, 1805 and grew up on a New England farm. When he was 15, he claimed that Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him not to join another church, but to be ready for a task. In 1827, Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni came to him and gave him gold plates. Those gold plates were supposedly in an ancient western language about Gods' other doings, in which …

…The city's economy was strengthened with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and a railroad connection from Salt Lake City to the transcontinental railroad in 1870. Mining increased with the arrival of the railroad, and the city's population more than doubled in the 1880s. After the nationwide depression of 1893, the population increasing its rapid growth, passing 50,000 by 1900 and 140,000 by 1930. By the year 2000 the Mormon Church was known for having five Million members, world wide.