Park City is a city located in the state of Utah in the United States. It is one of three major resort towns in Utah with the others being Moab and St. George. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back and a part of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The city is 30 miles (48 km) east of downtown Salt Lake City and 15 miles (24km) from Salt Lake City's east edge of Sugarhouse along Interstate 80. The population was 7,371 at the 2000 census. Its estimated population in 2004 was 7,882. On average the tourist population greatly outnumbers the resident. Park City is also the home to the 2005 Utah Basketball League state champion Park City Knights.
After a population decline following the shutdown of the area's mining industry the city rebounded during the 1980s and 1990s in the tourism business. The city has three major ski resorts: Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort, and The Canyons Resort. The Park City and Deer Valley ski resorts were the major locations for ski and snowboarding events at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Although they receive less snow at 300 inches (762 cm) and have a shorter season than do their counterparts in Salt Lake County, such as Snowbird resort, who accumulates 500 inches (1270 cm) each season and stays open longer, usually closing on Memorial Day in late May instead of early April, they are much easier to access.
Additionally the city is the main location of the United States's largest independent film festival, the Sundance Film Festival, home of the United States Ski Team, the largest collection of factory outlet stores in northern Utah, the Olympic bobsled course, a luge run, and golf courses. In 2005, I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer was shot in the city. Outdoor-oriented businesses such as backcountry.com and Rossignol have their headquarters based in Park City. The city has many upscale luxury national retailers, clubs, bars, and restaurants, and has nearby reservoirs, hot springs, forests, and hiking and biking trails. Park City is also the original home of the Mrs. Fields Cookies chain.
In the summertime many valley residents of the 2,000,000 strong Wasatch Front visit the town to escape high temperatures since Park City is usually 20°F (6°C) cooler, being that Salt Lake City sits about 4,000 feet above sea level and Park City is mostly above 7,000 feet on the back slopes of the mountain peaks that border the Salt Lake Valley and are over 11,000 feet.
Park City is one of the wealthiest cities in the United States and is notable in Utah for having a large number of northern and central European immigrants (from countries such as Norway and Switzerland) and many California transplants. It is the most politically liberal place in the state; over two-thirds of its residents voted against banning same-sex marriage.
The city was settled as a mining town in 1870 after lead, gold, and silver were discovered in the area. The city became heavily populated to such an extent that many people thought it would replace Salt Lake City as the primary city in Utah. However, the mines penetrated the water table and were flooded, and the city nearly became a ghost town. Skiing began to come to the city in the 1950s, but the city did not recover until the 1970s, when growth finally came. Growth has accelerated in the last few decades, and it now stands as one of the most affluent and lively resort towns in the United States.
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