American Fork, Utah

Episode 166 / 9 April 2020 / 163 min / full

Starting Your Own Religion Can Be Ta covered name

"We're going to American Fork, Utah ... this is in Utah County, about 30 minutes outside of Salt Lake City" about 0:05:18

The case: Murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty (July 24, 1984); Deaths of the Strack family (September 2014). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2020

Population

28,507

Median age

27.8

Median household income

$71,000

Median home value

$352,500

Two-bedroom rent

about $1,050

Cost of living

112.3

Religious

95.7%

Property crime

▼ just under the national average

Violent crime

▼ about one-third

History, in brief

• The area was used as a seasonal hunting and fishing ground by the Ute Indians. about 0:08:31
• American Fork was settled in 1850 by Mormon pioneers. about 0:08:40
• It was first named Lake City in 1852. about 0:08:44
• The first settlers were Arza Adams and Stephen covered nameman, who settled along the American Fork River. about 0:09:13
• In the 1850s there was fighting between the incoming Mormons and the Native Americans already there. about 0:09:34
• At a meeting at the schoolhouse in 1853, Lorenzo Snow and Parley Pratt convinced the settlers to move into one central fort. about 0:09:56
• The fort was built on a 37-acre site to protect the settlers from native attacks. about 0:10:10
• The town was renamed American Fork after the river to avoid confusion with Salt Lake City. about 0:10:26
• It had a public school by the 1860s and was the first community in the Utah territory to offer public education. about 0:10:53
• American Fork had a rail access point for mining in the 1870s. about 0:11:02
• The town feuded with Lehi after the Utah Sugar Company chose Lehi as its factory site instead of American Fork. about 0:11:11
• The population expanded during the Second World War because the Columbia Steel Plant was built there. about 0:11:38
• The town's annual summer celebration was renamed Steel Days in the forties. about 0:11:52
• The city built a hospital in 1937. about 0:12:12
• The 1992 film The Sandlot was filmed around Salt Lake City, and its carnival scene was shot in American Fork on State Street by Robinson Park. about 0:12:20
• Scenes from Footloose were filmed in American Fork, including the opening church scene, the front porch scene and the gas station scene. about 0:13:15
• The first ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the area was organised in 1851. about 0:14:04
• The majority of the population is Mormon, and there is also a Catholic parish in the town. about 0:14:15
• Steel Days was formerly Timber Day, then Liberty Day, then for years Poultry Day. about 0:28:41
• It became Steel Day in 1945 for the war effort, after the mayor decided Poultry Day no longer reflected the city's economy. about 0:28:55

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