Take a moment to think about history of US statehood. The Mormons, chased off Eastern settlements for their polygamy, settled most of the mountain West, declared governance, then watched big mining operations all around them get cut off from their territory and turned into full-fledged states, while they were not admitted to the union for decades.

It was a time of shared culture that is unrecognizable from where we stand today, and they absolutely didn't want to give statehood to polygamists...