Little Cottonwood Creek is one of the principal streams entering Salt Lake Valley from the east rises near the summit of the Wasatch Mountains a short distance south of the ski resort town of Alta and flows in a westerly direction through Little Cottonwood Canyon until it emerges into Salt Lake Valley about eleven miles from its source thence its course is north westerly through Sandy, Midvale and Murray, Utah until it empties into the Jordan River about six miles south of Salt Lake City. Its whole length is nearly twenty seven miles. The headwaters of Little Cottonwood Creek are in Little Cottonwood Canyon, a glaciated canyon in Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains eco-region. One of the main tributaries of the creek rises in Cecret Lake a small sheet of water situated near Alta. The entire Little Cottonwood Creek drainage basin encompasses 46 mi2, ranging in altitude from about 4,490 to 11,500 ft.Communities were founded around the creek soon after pioneer settlement of Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and supported agricultural activities. Following the discovery of gold, silver, copper, and lead in nearby canyons in the 1870s, ore-refining activities brought an influx of people to these communities. During the mid- to late 1900s, residential land use replaced agriculture as the dominant land-use type in the lower Little Cottonwood Creek drainage basin as the population of Salt Lake Valley expanded.
