As early as 1849 a petition for statehood was sent to Congress, asking that the area be designated the "State of Deseret--its name, derived from the Book of Mormon, meaning Land of the Honeybee--and that it comprise all the area south to the Rio Grande, north to Canada, and west to the Pacific Ocean. This ambitious request was not honored, but in the summer of that year the United States Government sent Captain Howard Stansbury to make a topographical survey of the region, and a year later the Territory of Utah was designated to include an area now making up the states of Utah and Nevada, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming. The Congress appointed Brigham Young governor of the territory, and many of the first offices were awarded to Mormons. Federal funds were appropriated for salaries and other expenses of government, and a special appropriation for a library was also approved. In June 1850 Brigham established the first newspaper, The Deseret News, with Willard Richards as its editor. (Widtsoe, 1977)
On March 4, 1849, a convention, to which were invited all the inhabitants of upper California east of the Sierra Nevadas, was held in Great Salt Lake City to frame a system of government. The outcome was the adoption of a constitution for a state to be called the State of Deseret, and the election of a full set of state officers. The boundaries of this state were liberal. Starting at a point in what is now New Mexico, the line was to run down to the Mexican border, then west along the border of lower California to the Pacific, up the coast to 118 degrees 30 minutes west longitude, north to the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevadas, and along their summit to the divide between the Columbia River...............
