SALT LAKE CITY, the
largest city in Utah, is the center and heart of the rich intermountain region. It has
transportation facilities to serve most effectively that entire territory, as well as the
Pacific Coast, the Northwest and the Central States. It is a great commercial and
distributing center, and its opportunities in industry and manufacturing are equally great
because raw materials are easily available for every type of industry.
Transportation facilities are already there to take care of great business expansion.
The territory surrounding Salt Lake City has fertile soil for bounteous crops and
orchards, and there are millions of acres of land susceptible of irrigation and
reclamation. The largest open cut copper mine in the world is located near Salt Lake City,
at Bingham. In this vicinity also are mines which in 1923 produced 28 per cent of the
nation's silver; 18.1 per cent of the lead; 16 per cent of the copper, and 6.35 per cent
of the gold.
The great resources of Utah have been only partly developed. Iron ore, limestone and
coking coal, found in Utah in vast deposits within short distances of each other, assure
the success of the n e w I y established steel industry, which promises to make Salt Lake
City a great iron and steel center, rivalling Chicago, Gary and Pittsburgh.
Mining, smelting, fruit and vegetable canning, packing plants, beet sugar factories, flour
mills, milk condensories, dairying, stock raising, farming, wholesaling and jobbing are
among the important industries of which Salt Lake City is the commercial center.
Utah has more coal than the Ruhr, and the vast coal resources of the state have scarcely
been touched. During fifty years of production, her estimated coal deposits have been
decreased only one-half of one per cent. It is estimated that the coal resources of the
state, which are producing at the rate of nearly 5,000,000 tons annually, are about
11,008,864,000 tons.
It is estimated conservatively that there is upwards of $50,000,000 of actual cash
invested in Utah coal properties at the present time. Excellent coking coal is mined in
large quantities, and superior coke made in the large coking ovens for industrial use, as
well as gas coke for domestic use.
More than $1,000,000 a week is being taken from the ground in Utah. Since 1868 Utah has
been one of the nation's leading metal producing states, its output to date having a value
of $1,417,631,000, from which dividends of approximately $260,500,000 have been paid by 85
companies operating in fifteen separate districts.
The nation's largest silver mines are in Utah. Among the states in 1923 it ranked first in
silver production, second in copper production, third in lead, and sixth in production of
the precious metal, gold.
With the development of the mining industry, there has grown in Salt Lake valley the
world's largest smelting center, where are located four copper and lead smelting plants
that have an annual total capacity for the reduction of 4,500,000 tons of ore. The
industry furnishes 85 percent of the freight traffic originating in the state, and its
mines, mills and smelters furnish employment for 18,000 men, totaling a pay roll of
approximately $30,000,000 annually.
In addition to the precious and semi-precious metal deposits there are vast stores of
known iron and coal deposits, the world's largest alunite deposits, which are rich in
potash and aluminum, and immeasurable tonnages of oil shales which government reports
estimate contain more than 42,800,000,000 barrels of oil and 500,000,000 tons of ammonium
sulphate. The world's largest deposits of hydro-carbons the annual production being 30,000
tons; gilsonite, elaterite and ozokerite, immense deposits of natural material from which
cement is manufactured, and all classes of building materials, such as clays, gypsum, and
building stone, including various colors of marble, are found within the state. Near Salt
Lake City are 210 different minerals.
Active drilling operations are going on in several parts of Utah and indications are that
oil in commercial quantities will be discovered. Utah is rich in timber resources which
have scarcely been touched so far, owing to lack of proper transportation facilities.
In Salt Lake City the manufacturer finds raw material readily available, an adequate and
dependable supply of hydro-electric power, fuel and water in abundance, and seven great
railroads radiating from Salt Lake City for the distribution of his products.
Salt Lake City has established herself as the center in a manufacturing way, of the inter
mountain territory. The value of products manuf a c t u r e d in Salt Lake City has
reached a total of $103,814,000 yearly. Manufactured products in Utah increased from
$50,000,000 in 1905 to $300,000,000 in 1920 -500 per cent.
In the past few years industries have been coming in more rapidly than at any time before
in the history of the city. The industrial prospects have never been so bright and a
number of the largest manufacturers in the country are preparing to establish branch
factories in the city.
In the last three years new industries have been established with an annual pay roll of
about $4,008,400, and approximate investments totaling $5,000,000.
Salt Lake City is the distributing center for all merchandise in the intermountain
territory, within a radius of about three hundred and fifty miles. Practically every
national distributing sales organization has an office in Salt Lake City, because of its
strategic location. There are 9,500 country merchants, in seven states, doing business
with Salt Lake City's jobbers and wholesalers and manufacturers.
Salt Lake City being the commercial capital and situated in the center of a rich
agricultural, mining and manufacturing district, is a natual distributing point. The
jobbing interests are increasing with the growth of the city's population and the
noticeable industrial expansion.
Salt Lake City is the wholesale headquarters for several hundred cities with a radius of
six hundred to seven hundred miles. Salt Lake City supplies a retail trade territory
several hundred miles in radius, the retail business of the city in 1923 totaling
$52,312,000.
Salt Lake City's bank clearings in 1923 were $671,653,915.95, placing it first in bank
clearings among cities of similar size in the United States. Indications are that the
total for 1925 will be $50,000,000 in excess of 1923.
During the three years just past, Salt Lake City has issued 4,262 new building permits,
with a total value of $17,889,396, a showing which clearly indicates the city's growth.
Salt Lake City is, also the "Center of Scenic America--the gateway to sixty-one
national parks and monuments. The newly-famous scenic wonderlands of Southern Utah are
attracting thousands of tourists every year,. Salt Lake City itself is a beautiful,
progressive city, protected on the east by the majestic
Rockies, with seven picturesque canyons opening at the city's very edge. To the west lies
the famous inland salt sea, the Great Salt Lake, so salty that you float with ease on its
surface.
THE transportation service rendered by
the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and facilities it has provided, have unquestionably
assisted in the development, progress and growth of Salt Lake City and the state of Utah.
Its advent into Utah fostered the building of many towns along its lines, and it now
serves more important cities and towns in Utah than any other railroad.
It has always had more miles of rails in Utah than any other railroad.
It serves a larger area of Utah's agricultural and mining territory than any other
railroad.
Its pay roll is the largest of any railroad in Utah. The money it pays out in wages is
spent in Utah for the necessities and luxuries of life. Flowing through natural channels
of trade, this money greatly enhances Utah's commercial prosperity.
It pays more taxes than any other railroad in Utah and thereby makes a greater
contribution to the upkeep of its highways, the support of its schools, county and state
institutions and governmental bodies.
Besides having the largest pay roll and tax disbursement of any railroad in Utah, it
spends in the state annually large sums for materials, fuel and supplies.
In 1924 it disbursed in the state of U t a h, $7,737,490.37. T h i s amount was spent as
follows: Pay roll, $6,064,386.70; taxes, $643,407,066; fuel, $683,158.85; material and
supplies, $346,537.16.
Combining most advantageously the greatest number of facilities and conditions necessary
for successful manufacturing and merchandising the widest variety of commodities, Salt
Lake City is rapidly becoming the industrial center of the intermountain west. The very
fact of this concentration of varied commerce and industry gives Salt Lake City a special
cumulative advantage, widening as this progressive metropolis grows.
|
Downtown Salt Lake 1925
Utah State Capitol at Salt Lake City
Union Depot
Stockyards
|
