First Settlers of Holladay

The town is named for the man who led its founders here. John D. Holladay brought the Mississippi Company of pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 29, 1847, and where most new arrivals stayed close to the city, his group looked farther out — for good hay, water power, and land to irrigate. They found it at a spring-fed stream below Mount Olympus and settled there that fall, the first village established away from Great Salt Lake City itself. When Holladay was made the local church leader, the place took his name: Holladay's Burgh, then simply Holladay.

What the plaque says

John D. Holladay, a leader of the Mississippi Company of Mormon Pioneers, entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 29, 1847. John Holladay's group explored the valley of the Great Salt Lake and its tributary canyons with an eye towards irrigation, wild hay for their animals, and water power for mills. Most of the Mississippi Company stayed together and by fall had planned their farms and community in the area of a free-flowing, spring-fed stream issuing from the base of Mt. Olympus. Thus the village of Spring Creek, as the stream was then called, was the first to be established away from Great Salt Lake City itself. As soon as John D. Holladay was named the Branch President, the village took upon itself the name of Holladay's Settlement or Holladay's Burgh. In February of 1849 the first surveyed plots of land were issued to the settlers. Original land owners Lot #1 John D. Holladay · Lot #2 Alen F. Smithson · Lot #3 Robert D. Covington · Lot #4 John D. Holladay · Lot #5 Robert D. Covington · Lot #6 Orlando F. Mead · Lot #7 Robert D. Covington · Lot #8 John Lockhart · Lot #9 John Lockhart · Lot #10 John D. Holladay · Lot #11 Lyman Stephens · Lot #12 Joseph Matthews · Lot #13 Ezekiel Lee · Lot #14 Milo Andrus · Lot #15 Daniel W. Perkins · Lot #16 William Casto · Lot #17 Wiliam Watkins · Lot #18 William Whitehead

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Gilgal Sculpture Garden — 5.9 mi
  A surreal and eccentric sculpture garden hidden in a residential neighborhood
• This Is The Place Heritage Park — 6.0 mi
  A living history village at the mouth of Emigration Canyon
• Liberty Park — 6.2 mi
  Salt Lake Citys beloved 80-acre urban park since 1882
• International Peace Gardens — 6.6 mi
  A hidden garden where 28 countries are represented in miniature

More markers nearby

• The 1847 Dugouts — steps away
• Holladay's 1848 Family Homesteads — steps away
• Holladay's 1853 Fort — 0.3 mi
• Old Fort Site — 0.4 mi