Salt Lake City is the capital and most populous city of Utah. The area was settled by Mormon pioneers on 24 July 1847, as the Mormons had hoped to flee persecution in the United States by seeking a secluded area in Mexico to form their main settlement. The pioneers turned the arid, inhospitable valley into an extensively irrigated and cultivated region, allowing for the area to be settled as a city. From 1853 to 1893, the Salt Lake Temple of the LDS Church was built at Brigham Young's command, and the pioneers created the state of Deseret, existing from 1849 until the US creation of the Utah Territory in 1850. In 1858, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the capital of the territory, and the population continued to swell as Mormon converts and Gold Rush seekers migrated into the area. Immigration of international members of the church, mining booms, and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad initially brought economic growth, and it was nicknamed "the Crossroads of the West". In 1872, the first streetcar began to run in the city, and the system was electrified in 1889. Upon Utah's statehood in 1896, Salt Lake City became the state capital, but its growth stagnated due to suburbanization, and the city did not annex many of its suburbs, which contained most of the metro area's population. In 2017, Salt Lake City had a population of 200,544 people.
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