both sides, are 132 feet wide (eight rods). (The street widths were designed to follow the Plat of Zion and not for turning oxen, though the latter was perhaps a practical consequence of the design.) Each block was initially subdivided into eight equally sized lots of 1.25 acres, which is unusually large for a western settlement.6 In Salt Lake City, city founders prized self-sufficiency, permitting the planting of vegetable gardens and fruit trees in the early years and erecting barns and animal holding areas, which was a departure from the Plat of Zion directives. As planned, the lots were to contain a single house centered on the lot and set back a uniform distance of 20 feet from the street. Very early regulations also called for shade trees to be planted along the frontage of all lots.7 Plat of Salt Lake vs Plat of Zion The plan set the dimensions and orientation of blocks, streets and lots, and a central location for temples and other public buildings, but no commercial streets. Smith’s “Plat of Zion” was designed to be compact and dense, with small town lots, closely surrounded by agricultural fields that were meant for a daily commute. Smith had designed the City of Zion to hold up to 20,000 people on just one square mile, a density that would require 10 to 12 residents for every half-acre house lot. At the time Salt Lake City was founded, there were about 17,000 Mormons waiting beyond the Rocky Mountains to follow Young into the Great Basin. Had Young followed the compact Plat of Zion plan, most of them would have been accommodated in the city proper. Instead, the first plat (Plat A) of Salt Lake City was 2.5 square miles, instead of one, but was planned with only 1,080 lots. Plats B and C were laid out the following year. Young greatly altered the dimensions of the lots in the Plat of Zion to reduce the density of the settlement, which would allow more agricultural uses in town. He kept the large dimensions of the blocks and streets but divided the 10-acre blocks into much larger lots (eight instead of 20) so that each lot was 1.25 acres. This turned out to be a crucial decision. Figure 2 compares the size of blocks and lots in the initial plat of Salt Lake City to the Plat of Zion. In the Plat of Zion, Temple Square was to be located in the center of town. Due to the topography of Salt Lake City, however, Temple Square was not geographically at the center but on the far north where the valley floor meets the foothills to the north and where City Creek divided into two streams. This is apparent on what is believed to be the initial surveyors’ working sheepskin document, recently acquired by the Library of Congress after years of languishing in the attic of a pioneer’s descendant.7 Initially, 40 acres (four blocks) were reserved for the temple, storehouses and other public use. This was quickly scaled back to one city block.5 Plat A is a uniform grid of 660 ft by 660 ft blocks (40 rods). Streets, including 20 feet set out for sidewalks on Figure 2. The subdivision pattern of Salt Lake’s initial blocks (a) compared to the Plat of Zion (b) blocks. Same scale. Figure 1. Plat A of Salt Lake City (a) compared at the same scale to the Plat of Zion (b). Note the variance in lot sizes and the smaller size of the area reserved for the Temple (dark squares). The grey blocks were initially public space. Each block is 660 x 660 ft. Figures courtesy of the author. 17
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