With the Capitol in Salt Lake City closed for renovation, Huntsman opted for Fillmore for symbolic reasons and because of family and emotional ties to the small town along Interstate 15 about 145 miles south of Salt Lake City. Fresh from his election, the great-great-great-great-grandson of Fillmore pioneers will tout his plans for a better Utah, signalling with his presence here that not all Utah politics "is driven by the needs of the Wasatch Front."

Young, prophet and president of the Mormon church at the time he was territorial governor, had a similar political agenda, but for different reasons, when the territorial government was moved from Salt Lake City to Fillmore. He commissioned grandiose plans for a huge statehouse to be located at the center of a 225,000-square-mile state stretching from the Colorado Rockies to the Sierra Nevada.

Today, though, Fillmore has only about 2,250 residents and the statehouse is a rather small, two-story brick and stone building, a single, still unfinished wing of the planned capitol.

Young was pleased when the anti-Mormon President Zachary Taylor died suddenly in July of 1850 and was replaced by Vice President Millard Fillmore. Fillmore helped usher through the Compromise of 1850, in which Utah was admitted to the union as a territory, just three years after Mormons settled in the Salt Lake Valley. And despite intense opposition because of polygamy and questions about theocratic rule, he appointed Brigham Young as governor. As part of the deal, Utah elected a member of Fillmore's Whig Party as a delegate to Congress.

Soon, however, three non-Mormons appointed to territorial offices sparked a crisis with allegations of authoritarian rule and misgovernment under Young's leadership. The territory's Washington representative, John Bernhisel, warned that "it is considered a settled matter that Governor Young is to be removed."

Young, however, refuted the charges and moved to make a gesture of conciliation with a letter to the president complaining that southern Utah cities were too far from the capital at Salt Lake City. A few days later, Bernhisel delivered Utah's request that the capital be placed at Chalk Creek in central Utah, an apparent concession that would physically separate Utah's religious seat of power and the center of its government. Utah proposed Fillmore as the name of the new town.

President Fillmore kept Young as governor, and on Oct. 4, 1851, the Territorial Legislative Assembly declared Fillmore the capital, with the county called Millard.

Young had other reasons for the designation. He had found the area quite suitable for one of the colonies he envisioned. One enthusiastic report even claimed the area could support a million people.

Architect Truman O. Angell drew up plans for a capitol of four, two-story wings surrounding a central dome soaring high above. Work soon began on the south wing and workmen finished in time for the Legislature to meet there beginning Dec. 10, 1855.

Young, who had arrived in ill health after the journey from Salt Lake City, apparently gave an introduction before his secretary delivered most of his speech to lawmakers the next day.

"This part of the contemplated State House, being the south wing only, though it may answer for the present, has not those conveniences and that spaciousness and beauties which will be connected with the building, when finished in accordance with the original design," the governor admitted.

Indeed, legislators found the building with little furniture and accommodations in town rather rough.

Young recommended the Legislature take steps toward statehood and reported on matters of economic development, education, Indian relations and territorial finances.

"Educational interests have flourished hitherto, with but little aid or encouragement from the Legislative Assembly," Young said.

The governor also reported on industry in the state, mostly small manufacturers but also iron works.

"I recommend a continuance of the liberal policy, heretofore extended to this branch of domestic manufacturing," he told legislators.

The Legislature and other state officials labored in Fillmore until adjournment on Jan. 18, 1856, and left for home, camping out along the way in the dead of winter. Heber Kimball, president of the Legislative Council [equivalent to today's Senate], said in a letter that weather "was cold . . . It was severely cold. We arrived home in about four days."

The Territorial Legislature convened again the next year in Fillmore on Dec. 15, 1856, just long enough to pass a resolution and adjourn to Salt Lake City.

The resolution cited as a reason for the move the federal government's failure to commit more money for the statehouse, the reluctance of Congress apparently because of allegations Young was mixing public and church funds.

"The funds appeared to be misused and the problem of Brigham Young being the prophet and the governor at the same time didn't sit well," said Carl Camp, museum curator.

The unfinished nature of the statehouse, its distance from the main population center and the lack of comfortable accommodations led the Legislature to declare: "That the seat of government is removed from Fillmore City to Great Salt Lake City."

Only once in an official capacity did the Legislature return. In 1858 the Legislature convened in Fillmore, apparently because non-Mormon appointed judges had declared it was still the capital. Lawmakers heard a message from Alfred Cumming, who replaced Young as territorial governor, then approved a resolution moving the seat of government once more to Salt Lake City.

In April of 1895, 27 years after the Legislature had convened in Fillmore, the state Constitutional Convention on a 43-7 vote fixed the location of the seat of government as Salt Lake City and required the Legislature to meet there.

Since the Legislature adjourned that last time in Fillmore, the south wing of the Territorial Statehouse has been used as a civic center, religious meeting center, school, theater and a jail. It opened as a museum in 1930.

Huntsman's return to deliver the governor's annual address means that, if only for a day, Fillmore again has the trappings as the seat of Utah's political power.

"I'm happy as can be," said Mayor Sam Starley. "Our city is as happy as can be."

The city is planning a dutch oven dinner for the governor, legislators and other officials before about 130 people crowd into the top level of the statehouse for Huntsman's address where Young once delivered his.

Critics in the Legislature have argued that any State of the State address given outside of Salt Lake City, the seat of government, would be unconstitutional. Huntsman may have to present a written copy to the House and Senate sometime later in Salt Lake City to fulfill a constitutional requirement for a report on the condition of the state.

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Reporter Rebecca Walsh contributed to this story.