Echo, Utah

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Mormons settled in Echo Canyon in 1861 and marketed produce to a steady stream of travelers. In 1868, thousands of Mormon men were employed by the railroad to bore tunnels and build grades. Irish workers set the ties and laid the rails. Construction in Echo and Weber canyons was the most challenging along the entire Union Pacific route. On October 15, 1868, Brigham Young Jr. purchased this entire valley from James E. Bromley for $200 and designated it Echo City. Deseret Evening News reporter Edward Slone wrote of seeing fewer than half-a-dozen buildings here before Christmas 1868 but over 50, four weeks later. The first locomotive reached Echo City January 16, 1869, and was met with joyful celebration. Completion of the transcontinental railroad essentially ended an era in America, the westward migration of settlers by wagon train.

Echo City’s original plat had fourteen 80-foot-wide avenues, crossing the valley cast and west, which were named for Brigham Young Jr.’s wives. The streets, running north and south, were named in honor of Union Pacific dignitaries.

The railroad’s construction and completion stimulated the development of Echo City. “Surely the advent of the Union Pacific Railroad into our isolated and peaceful valleys of the mountains brought radical changes to our people for both good and evil.”