Spanish Fork, Utah
Encyclopedia
Spanish Fork is a city in Utah County, Utah
, United States
. It is part of the Provo
–Orem
, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area
. The population was 31,497 as of the 2008 census estimate.
, along a route later followed by fur trappers. They described the area inhabited by native Americans as having "spreading meadows, where there is sufficient irrigable land for two good settlements. Over and above these finest of advantages, it has plenty of firewood and timber in the adjacent sierra which surrounds its many sheltered spots, waters, and pasturages, for raising cattle and sheep and horses".
In 1851 some settlers led by William Pace set up scattered farms in the Spanish Fork bottom lands and called the area the Upper Settlement. However a larger group congregated at what became known as the Lower Settlement just over a mile north-west of the present center of Spanish Fork along the Spanish Fork River. In December 1851 Stephen Markham became the branch president of the LDS settlers at this location.
In 1852 Latter-day Saints founded a settlement called Palmyra west of the historic center of Spanish Fork. George A. Smith
supervised the laying out of a townsite, including a temple square in that year. A fort was built at this site. A school was built at Palmyra in 1852. With the onset of the Walker War in 1853 most of the farmers in the region who were not yet in the fort moved in. Some of the people did not like this site and so moved to a site at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon where they built a structure they called "Fort St. Luke". Also in 1854 there was a fort founded about two miles (3 km) south of the center of Spanish Fork that latter was known as the "Old Fort".
In 1856 Brigham Young
advised leaving the Palmyra site because of its swampiness and the high alkali content of the soil. At this time the settlers relocated to Spanish Fork and began to build its current center. John L. Butler became the first bishop of the Spanish Fork Ward at this time.
Between 1855 and 1860, the arrival of pioneers from Iceland
made Spanish Fork into the first permanent Icelandic settlement in the United States. The city also lent its name to the 1865 Treaty of Spanish Fork, where the Utes
were forced by an Executive Order of President Abraham Lincoln
to relocate to the Uintah Basin
.
In 1891 the Spanish Fork Ward was divided into two wards. By 1930 there were five Spanish Fork Wards plus the Palmyra Ward which had been established at the location of the old settlement in 1901.
type of government. Dave Oyler is the current city manager.
The city held a general election on November 3, 2009. As part of the election, Wayne Anderson was elected Mayor, and Steve Leifson was re-elected to the City Council. The other open City Council seat was a very close election, so a recount was requested, after which Keir Scoubes was found to have won the seat. The other City Councilmen are Rod Dart, Richard Davis and Jens Nielson.
. The festival includes professional kite fliers, kite making workshops, sailing and canoe rides, remote control airplane flyovers, a luau
, and energy expo.
Spanish Fork was the first Icelandic settlement in the United States, after Icelanders who joined the LDS Church were expelled from that country, said association spokesman Glenn Grossman. Although other nationalities helped found the town, under colonizer Brigham Young
, Icelanders kept their identity and celebrate it with their culture every year during the three-day event.
, a popular local musician.
celebration that runs from Thanksgiving
to New Years. It is a drive-through light show. Christmas music is also broadcast on 99.9 FM during the festival.
estimate of 2008, there were 31,497 people, 7,994 households, and 7,359 families residing in the city. The population density
was 2,050.6 people per square mile (791.8/km²). There were 8,627 housing units at an average density of 561.7 per square mile (216.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 90.2% White, 0.3% African American, 1.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.6% Pacific Islander, 5.0% from other races
, and 2.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.5% of the population.
The median income for a household in the city was $62,805, and the median income for a family was $64,909. The per capita income
for the city was $17,162. About 4.3% of families and 6.2% of the population were below the poverty line.
Mountain Country Foods is currently Spanish Fork's largest private employer with 350 employees. Eight other businesses employ one hundred or more workers: SAPA, Klune Industries, Longview Fibre, Nature's Sunshine, Rocky Mountain Composites, J.C. Penney, Western Wats, and Provo Craft.
Although Spanish Fork has a predominantly LDS population, the Presbyterian Church established a church and mission day school in 1882. The school functioned until the state school system was inaugurated in the early part of the twentieth century. Today there are eight elementary schools, two intermediate, and two high schools. A Lutheran church, established by immigrants from Iceland
, was built on the east bench of Spanish Fork. There is also the Faith Baptist Church, as well as seventy four LDS wards in nine stakes.
ISKCON the international society of Krishna Consciousness have built a temple in Spanish Fork, run by Caru Das, the temple priest.
. Public schools in this district within Spanish Fork include the following:
In addition, there is a private girls school, the New Haven School, and a K-12 charter school: the American Leadership Academy.
plant in Spanish Fork Canyon (which is southeast of the city of Spanish Fork). It would be part of the Central Utah Project
's flow-control facility, at the mouth of Diamond Canyon. The facility is expected to be financed by private investment, and is proposed to have a maximum output of 8 megawatt, with a projected yearly output of 23,000 megawatt-hours.
Utah County, Utah
Utah County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. As of 2000, the population was 368,536 and by 2008 was estimated at 530,837. It was named for the Spanish name for the Ute Indians. The county seat and largest city is Provo...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is part of the Provo
Provo, Utah
Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
–Orem
Orem, Utah
Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the north-central part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is about south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Utah and...
, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area
Provo-Orem metropolitan area
The Provo-Orem Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of two counties in Utah, anchored by the cities of Provo and Orem...
. The population was 31,497 as of the 2008 census estimate.
History
Spanish Fork was settled by LDS pioneers in 1851. Its name derives from a visit to the area by two Franciscan friars from Spain, Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez in 1776, who followed the stream down Spanish Fork canyon with the objective of opening a new trail from Santa Fe, New Mexico to the Spanish missions in CaliforniaSpanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
, along a route later followed by fur trappers. They described the area inhabited by native Americans as having "spreading meadows, where there is sufficient irrigable land for two good settlements. Over and above these finest of advantages, it has plenty of firewood and timber in the adjacent sierra which surrounds its many sheltered spots, waters, and pasturages, for raising cattle and sheep and horses".
In 1851 some settlers led by William Pace set up scattered farms in the Spanish Fork bottom lands and called the area the Upper Settlement. However a larger group congregated at what became known as the Lower Settlement just over a mile north-west of the present center of Spanish Fork along the Spanish Fork River. In December 1851 Stephen Markham became the branch president of the LDS settlers at this location.
In 1852 Latter-day Saints founded a settlement called Palmyra west of the historic center of Spanish Fork. George A. Smith
George A. Smith
George Albert Smith was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the church's First Presidency.-Childhood:Smith was born in Potsdam, St...
supervised the laying out of a townsite, including a temple square in that year. A fort was built at this site. A school was built at Palmyra in 1852. With the onset of the Walker War in 1853 most of the farmers in the region who were not yet in the fort moved in. Some of the people did not like this site and so moved to a site at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon where they built a structure they called "Fort St. Luke". Also in 1854 there was a fort founded about two miles (3 km) south of the center of Spanish Fork that latter was known as the "Old Fort".
In 1856 Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
advised leaving the Palmyra site because of its swampiness and the high alkali content of the soil. At this time the settlers relocated to Spanish Fork and began to build its current center. John L. Butler became the first bishop of the Spanish Fork Ward at this time.
Between 1855 and 1860, the arrival of pioneers from Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
made Spanish Fork into the first permanent Icelandic settlement in the United States. The city also lent its name to the 1865 Treaty of Spanish Fork, where the Utes
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
were forced by an Executive Order of President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
to relocate to the Uintah Basin
Uintah Basin
The Uintah Basin, also spelled Uinta Basin, is a physiographic section of the larger Colorado Plateaus province, which in turn is part of the larger Intermontane Plateaus physiographic division. It is also a geologic structural basin in eastern Utah, east of the Wasatch Mountains and south of the...
.
In 1891 the Spanish Fork Ward was divided into two wards. By 1930 there were five Spanish Fork Wards plus the Palmyra Ward which had been established at the location of the old settlement in 1901.
Government
Spanish Fork has a city managerCity manager
A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council-manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the chief executive officer or chief administrative officer in some municipalities...
type of government. Dave Oyler is the current city manager.
The city held a general election on November 3, 2009. As part of the election, Wayne Anderson was elected Mayor, and Steve Leifson was re-elected to the City Council. The other open City Council seat was a very close election, so a recount was requested, after which Keir Scoubes was found to have won the seat. The other City Councilmen are Rod Dart, Richard Davis and Jens Nielson.
Events
Spanish Fork City hosts five large-scale events throughout the year: Fiesta Days, the Wind Festival, Icelandic Days, the Harvest Moon Hurrah, and the Festival of Lights.Wind Fest
The Spanish Fork Wind Fest is August 28 and 29, and has only existed for two years, as a way to celebrate Spanish Fork's wind farmWind farm
A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...
. The festival includes professional kite fliers, kite making workshops, sailing and canoe rides, remote control airplane flyovers, a luau
Luau
A luau is a Hawaiian feast. It may feature food, such as poi, kalua pig, poke, lomi salmon, opihi, haupia, and beer; and entertainment, such as Hawaiian music and hula...
, and energy expo.
Icelandic Days
The Icelandic Association of Utah was founded in 1897 and hosts Iceland Days every year. The association picked June because Icelandic Independence Day, or National Day, is June 17.Spanish Fork was the first Icelandic settlement in the United States, after Icelanders who joined the LDS Church were expelled from that country, said association spokesman Glenn Grossman. Although other nationalities helped found the town, under colonizer Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
, Icelanders kept their identity and celebrate it with their culture every year during the three-day event.
Harvest Moon Hurrah
The Harvest Moon Hurrah is sponsored by the Spanish Fork Arts Council and takes place on September 19. Activities include children's crafts and activities, a giant paint-it-yourself mural, storyteller, old-fashioned family photos, caricature artist, clown and balloon animals, hay rides with live bluegrass band, and live entertainment. The 2009 Hurrah was headlined by Peter BreinholtPeter Breinholt
Peter Breinholt is a recording artist popular in the Salt Lake City, Utah local music scene. His music is usually classified as singer-songwriter....
, a popular local musician.
Festival of Lights
The Festival of Lights is a ChristmasChristmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
celebration that runs from Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday,...
to New Years. It is a drive-through light show. Christmas music is also broadcast on 99.9 FM during the festival.
Demographics
As of the censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
estimate of 2008, there were 31,497 people, 7,994 households, and 7,359 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 2,050.6 people per square mile (791.8/km²). There were 8,627 housing units at an average density of 561.7 per square mile (216.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 90.2% White, 0.3% African American, 1.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.6% Pacific Islander, 5.0% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 2.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.5% of the population.
The median income for a household in the city was $62,805, and the median income for a family was $64,909. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the city was $17,162. About 4.3% of families and 6.2% of the population were below the poverty line.
Mountain Country Foods is currently Spanish Fork's largest private employer with 350 employees. Eight other businesses employ one hundred or more workers: SAPA, Klune Industries, Longview Fibre, Nature's Sunshine, Rocky Mountain Composites, J.C. Penney, Western Wats, and Provo Craft.
Although Spanish Fork has a predominantly LDS population, the Presbyterian Church established a church and mission day school in 1882. The school functioned until the state school system was inaugurated in the early part of the twentieth century. Today there are eight elementary schools, two intermediate, and two high schools. A Lutheran church, established by immigrants from Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, was built on the east bench of Spanish Fork. There is also the Faith Baptist Church, as well as seventy four LDS wards in nine stakes.
ISKCON the international society of Krishna Consciousness have built a temple in Spanish Fork, run by Caru Das, the temple priest.
Schools
Spanish Fork is served by Nebo School DistrictNebo School District
Nebo School District is a public school district in Utah County, Utah serving the southern part of the county south of Utah Lake. Provo City School District and Alpine School District cover the central and northern parts of the county, respectively. Motto "Your partner in education"With 28,548...
. Public schools in this district within Spanish Fork include the following:
- Spanish Fork High School
- Maple Mountain High School
- Landmark High School (alternative school)
- Spanish Fork Junior High School
- Diamond Fork Junior High School (formerly known as Spanish Fork Middle School)
- Brockbank Elementary
- Canyon Elementary
- Larsen Elementary
- Park Elementary
- Rees Elementary
- Riverview Elementary
- Spanish Oaks Elementary
- East Meadows Elementary
- Sierra Bonita Elementary
In addition, there is a private girls school, the New Haven School, and a K-12 charter school: the American Leadership Academy.
Wind energy
In September 2008, the Spanish Fork Wind Project was completed. This project, a 9-turbine wind energy project, can produce up to 2.1 megawatts at full production and each of the nine turbines can power up to 1,200 homes.Hydropower energy
In May 2011 The US Bureau of Reclamation announced plans for a hydropowerHydropower
Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as...
plant in Spanish Fork Canyon (which is southeast of the city of Spanish Fork). It would be part of the Central Utah Project
Central Utah Project
The Central Utah Project is a United States federal water project. It was authorized for construction under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956 as a participating project...
's flow-control facility, at the mouth of Diamond Canyon. The facility is expected to be financed by private investment, and is proposed to have a maximum output of 8 megawatt, with a projected yearly output of 23,000 megawatt-hours.