• Rainbow Bridge, Nature’s abstract sculpture carved of solid sandstone, is the world’s largest natural-rock span. It stands 278 feet wide and 309 feet high.

• Salt Lake City was originally named Great Salt Lake City. Great was dropped from the name in 1868.

• The Uinta mountain range is named after the Ute Indians.

• The Wasatch mountain range is named after a Ute Indian name meaning “mountain pass” or “low place in a high mountain.”

• The name Utah comes from the Native American Ute tribe and means people of the mountains.

• Utah has five national parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce and Capitol Reef.

• Utah has seven national monuments: Cedar Breaks, Natural Bridges, Dinosaur, Rainbow Bridge, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Timpanogos Cave and Hovenweep.

• Utah has two national recreation areas: Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon.

• Utah has six national forests: Ashley, Dixie, Fishlake, Manti-LaSal, Uinta and Wasatch-Cache.

• The Escalante River is generally considered to be the last major river to be “discovered” in the contiguous United States.

• The controversy surrounding the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell is often cited as the beginning of the modern-day environmental movement.

• Cedar Hills is built upon an alluvial fan or bench, created thousands of years ago when it was a shoreline of Lake Bonneville.

• Beaver is the birthplace of two very famous individuals of the past — Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television, and Butch Cassidy, the notorious Western outlaw.

• Utah was acquired by the United States in 1848 in the treaty ending the Mexico War.

• The federal government owns 65 percent of the state’s land.

• The Great Salt Lake, which is about 75 miles long and 35 miles wide, covers more than a million acres.

• The Navajo Indians were referred to by the Apache as “Yuttahih” meaning “one that is higher up.”

Source: www.50states.com

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