Brigham's Utah

It's frozen out there, blistering cold.  To put it frankly, it is cold as balls.  Certainly, it seems as if the Earth itself were trying to kill us as its fruits recede into dried yellow grass and bare skeletal branches to deny sustenance to the living, while the cold alone could be enough to take a man without shelter or sufficient coverings.  It's a time of year that, taken on its own terms, brings to the fore the uncomfortable mortality of our existence, and yet, in our indomitable human spirit, generations before have seen fit to reform the world before our eyes into one more tolerable. Christmas is technically a Christian holiday, but at this point, it's also a cultural holiday outside of that.  There's a whole history to the December date and festive traditions, much of which has to do with the early Christians adapting the pagan pre-Christian festivals surrounding the winter solstice, like Yule and Saturnalia, but whether you take it literally or symbolical...

There have been 29 counties in the state of Utah since the creation of Daggett as the 29th county in 1918, but when the Utah Territory was created in 1850, there were only 10.  Over the course of several decades, these 10 were reshaped, with portions broken off to form other counties for matters of practicality and redistricting, eventually resulting in the current map of 29.  Even in the midst of all this, another 10 counties were established and then either dissolved or absorbed into the boundaries of other counties or even other states.  Of these 10 no longer existing counties of Utah were: Carson Established in 1854, Dissolved in 1861   Named for the Carson River (that named after the famous explorer Christopher "Kit" Carson), Carson County originally dissolved in 1857, then re-established in 1859 before it became part of the Nevada Territory created in 1861. Cedar Established in 1856, Dissolved in 1862   Named for the juniper trees historically com...