The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah.

The territory was organized by an organic act of Congress in 1850, on the same day that the State of California was admitted to the Union. The creation of the territory was part of the Compromise of 1850 that sought to preserve the balance of power between slave and free states. With the exception of a small area around the headwaters of the Colorado River in present-day Colorado, the United States had acquired all the land of the territory from Mexico with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848.

The creation of the Utah Territory was partially the result of the petition sent by the Mormon pioneers who had settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake starting in 1847. The Mormons, under the leadership of Brigham Young, had petitioned Congress for entry into the Union as the State of Deseret, with its capital as Salt Lake City and with proposed borders that encompassed the entire Great Basin and the watershed of the Colorado River, including all or part of nine current U.S. states. The Mormon settlers had drafted a state constitution in 1849 and Deseret had become the de facto government in the Great Basin by the time of the creation of the Utah Territory.

Utah (/ˈjuːtɔː/ or ⁱ/ˈjuːtɑː/) (Arapaho: Wo'tééneihí' ) is a state in the Western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th-most extensive, the 34th-most populous, and the 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,817,222 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico.

Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union. It is home to the Salt Lake Temple, and approximately 60% of Utahns are reported to be members of LDS Church which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.

Orrin Porter Rockwell (June 28, 1813, or June 25, 1815–June 9, 1878) was a figure of the Wild West period of American History and a law man in the Utah Territory. Nicknamed Old Port and labeled "the Destroying Angel of Mormondom", during his lifetime he was as famous and controversial as Wyatt Earp or Pat Garrett.

Orrin Porter Rockwell was born on June 28, 1813 in Belchertown, Hampshire County, Massachusetts to Orin and Sarah Rockwell. He was baptized into the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ontario County, New York in 1830. He married Luana Beebe on February 2, 1832 in Jackson County, Missouri, and was endowed in the Nauvoo Temple on January 5, 1846. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as a loyal personal bodyguard to both Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young. Separating fact from legends, folklore and myths concerning Rockwell is difficult for historians, in large part because Rockwell was only semi-literate and kept no personal diary.