Item Detail
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12174
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0
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0
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English
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Precinct Government in Salt Lake County, Utah 1852-1904
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Provo, UT
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Brigham Young University
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Master's thesis
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"This thesis presents, in the form of a historical survey, the origin,
development, and decline, from 1852 to 1904, of Salt Lake County
precincts. During Utah's State of Deseret era, legislation approved on
January 31, 1850, created Salt Lake County and subdivided it into judicial units called precincts. A precinct functioned as a basic governmental unit of the county. It was not a Utah invention. The concept of district-level, or precinct, government could be found in many western states. It was established to allow for retention of a degree of local control by the people. A precinct was not a one-purpose district such as fortification, election, road, school, and irrigation districts. From Utah's county districts, justices of the peace, constables, estray poundkeepers, and fence viewers were chosen to serve the populace. (The functions of each officer varied according to legislative enactments and county mandates. County revenues supplied many of the funds needed for precinct services.) The geographical boundaries of precincts generally were coextensive with that of Individual settlements, which easily facilitated their formation. In 1852, at the time of Salt Lake County's organization, the county retained the precincts established under the territory's provisional government. Several times during Utah's territorial period, the county created new precincts as different communities emerged. At the height of the judicial precinct era, in 1894, there were 32 distinct precincts in the county. By mid-1904, the era of the "community precinct" had come to an end with the consolidation of the precincts into eleven districts." [Author]