Nauvoo

Nauvoo is, in Kyle’s notes, the origin point of his fascination with city-building. In a The New Urban Crisis connection note he recounts visiting Nauvoo, Illinois at age 11 or 12: “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were chased out of various towns and finally built a city from scratch in a swamp in Illinois that, at the time, was larger than Chicago.” Tied to some of his own ancestors, “seeing the history of what it meant to literally build a city” left him “ever since… fascinated by what it takes to organize such a fascinating and complicated tapestry of human lives.” The book page lists Nauvoo explicitly as “the city-from-scratch that first sparked the city-building fascination” — the personal anchor behind Kyle’s broader interest in cities and the city-building theme.

Context: Nauvoo was founded by Latter-day Saints led by Joseph Smith on the Mississippi River in the early 1840s, growing rapidly before the Saints were forced out in 1846 and migrated west to the Salt Lake Valley. Today much of the town is a restored historical site.

Where this appears

• The New Urban Crisis — Kyle’s childhood visit to Nauvoo as the “city from scratch” that first sparked his lifelong fascination with city-building.
• Josiah Quincy’s 1844 Visit with Joseph Smith — Josiah Quincy’s May 1844 visit (BYU Studies).