The Liberal Party was a political party established in the latter half of the 1800s in Utah Territory before the national Democrats and Republicans established themselves in Utah in the early 1890s.
The Liberal Party believed the economic future of Utah Territory lay in mining, and Utah miners, typically non-Mormon, often became key Liberal Party voters.
The Deseret Evening News, owned by the LDS Church, served as the de facto People's Party organ and regularly denounced the Liberal Party in its pages.
The Old Tooele County Courthouse, the site of the contentious Tooele Republic power struggle in 1874
Fred J. Kiesel, elected as Liberal mayor of Ogden in 1889
Eli Houston Murray was Governor of Utah Territory between 1880 and 1886. The city of Murray, Utah was named for him.
Liberal Party (Utah)
…Liberal Party was back to being shut out of elected office, but it was openly supported by the newly appointed strongly anti-Mormon territorial governor, Eli H. Murray. Thus, the 1880 statewide election for the US House of Representatives unexpectedly proved the closest that the Liberal Party got to sending a…