HolyRoller67
Banned
Joseph Smith was never born? What group of people settles there first?
What other butterflies would occur?
What other butterflies would occur?
Joseph Smith was never born? What group of people settles there first?
What other butterflies would occur?
Salt Lake City might still be the name of the city next to the Great Salt Lake. Nothing in Latter-day Saint religion makes that name special. However, naming would be extremely different all over, as lots of towns and cities there are named after famous early members of the LDS Church or out of figures from the Book of Mormon. Also, I don't think Utah would be more progressive... the Latter-day Saints pushed for woman suffrage and as such the Territory of Utah became one of the first governments to give women the right to vote. It was right with the rest of the western states in the Populist movement, if only it could have gotten statehood to participate in the presidential election of 1892.
This definitely delays the colonization/occupation of the entirety of the West. LDS pioneers were crucial for paving the way to the Far West. Brigham Young was adamant that pioneers should not just race to Utah, but that they should build bridges, blaze trails, agricultural outposts, forts, and inns, print maps. The Latter-day Saints were the first to really begin planning for the colonization of the entire American West, before the Gold Rush and the Mexican-American War caught the attention of the US government.
Otherwise, I do think that Utah would be more of a swing state, closer to Colorado and New Mexico. Actually, Arizona and Idaho would too, without LDS influence, but, then, the political borderline between the Republicans and Democrats might be different.
Gold Rush is likely to be butterflied a year or two later, without LDS workmen providing enough labor at Sutter's Mill and without Sam Brannan at Yerba Buena. San Francisco was basically an LDS colony-port for a year, with New York Latter-day Saints arriving on the Brooklyn and bringing the first printing press, flour mill, and twice as many settlers as Yerba Buena had at the time.
For that matter, I suspect the borders of the Western states would be very different.
I also wonder, if there is a Civil War analogue, if Nevada would include all of Utah as well. After all, Utah Territory covered both states, and really the only reason to keep Nevada from stretching into the east was because it was felt as if the Mormons couldn't be trusted.
This is my thought as well. Nevada was barely populated enough to become a state in 1864 as it was, so making it include as many people as possible would make sense. So, two fewer Senators in the US; the are of Utah would be less populated than OTL as well, so those House seats would be distributed elsewhere (and we likely ended up with a number other than the random 435 of OTL)