The first unnamed people in the area lived around the edges of
The first named group who lived in the valley were the northern
The first Europeans to travel through the area were perhaps small parties of Spanish soldiers, missionaries, miners, or slave buyers as early as the 1600s. Evidence is sparse because it was illegal to mine silver or trade with the Nuche. The name on Spanish maps for the area was Teguayo and Spanish authorities were aware of a large lake named Copalla, which shows a southern and northern bay perhaps
The written record is nearly silent from 1776 until the arrival of the first fur European trappers and traders who arrived in the early 1800s. There was a lively trade in slaves between
The only recorded trapper who led a party through the area was Etienne Provost, a French-Canadian trapper, who was lured into a Nuche camp somewhere along the Jordan River north of
In July 1847 the Pioneer Company of the Mormons entered the valley and immediately began to irrigate land and explore the area for new settlements. Because the valley wasn't the home range of any Ute band, the Nuche didn't do anything about the fledgling settlement on City Creek. Just two years later Mormon settlers began to spread out into the western part of the
The earliest pioneer landowner in the South Jordan area was Alexander Beckstead and his family who settled along the
Regardless, the deal was made and Beckstead and others went to work. The flood plain of the
They cleared and farmed the fields just above the
In 1863 the area "west of
Many local families with pioneer ancestors who lived in South Jordan have preserved stories about encounters with Nuche (Ute) in the south part of
A school was constructed in 1873 on the
1881 brought a diphtheria epidemic to the
Competition between neighboring towns took many forms. In 1882 a rabbit hunt competition was held between
South Jordan had its own post office from 1877 to 1887 when it became the Gale Post Office until 1901 when all mail was handled out of
Roads in the area were poor. In wet weather wagons could be mired up the "bellies" of the wagons. In dry weather the mixture of dust and horse manure clung to everything. The roads were rutted and rough. Horse teams occasionally graded the worst of the ruts, but the next rainstorm started the process all over again.
In the 1890s two new crops were introduced which changed farming in
A new school was built in 1892.
The turn of the century saw the establishment of the first businesses in
The town built a baseball diamond and grandstand in 1909 for baseball games. It was torn down during World War I and planted in wheat as part of a patriotic garden effort. The ball diamond was rebuilt for a time and then the land was turned into a LDS ward welfare farm.
With the passage of compulsory education laws in 1890 and the establishment of the
In 1914 the Salt Lake Interurban was constructed which made it possible to travel to
1918 brought the ravages of the Spanish Flu epidemic. In October 2,300 cases of influenza were diagnosed and 125 people died of it in
1920 saw the reconstruction of
The 1920s were very hard times for farmers. Prices for all fram products crashed in 1922 and remained low for the next twenty years. Families who had borrowed money to cultivate new acreage or boy farm equipment were unable to pay the loans and foreclosures haunted many families.
The
In 1931 The Utah Lake Distribution Canal was built along the "
The Depression hit
