Would such small places at such large distances show up so clearly?

Yes. You can very clearly see the answer in the first photo.

Is this band light pollution, camera effect, or a real phenomenon such as airglow?

It does not look exclusively like airglow, as properly defined, to my eyes. It appears to be sunlight that is diffused by the atmosphere on the horizon, but that is not what is defined as airglow. I wouldn't be surprised if some or even most of the light is also diffused light from the Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area. This region is a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along an approximately 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front, comprising a population of 2,423,912 as of 2014. I'm actually surprised it's not brighter in the 30 minute exposure at f/2!

It's also much brighter than actual airglow would be. There may be some amount of airglow mixed in with the light pollution from greater Salt Lake and/or the glow of the sun refracted by the atmosphere from less than 30° below the horizon. But the dominant amount of light in only one direction where two bright sources of light (greater SLC and the sun) are known to be argues that it isn't mostly airglow.

From the Wikipedia article cited in the question:

Airglow is caused by various processes in the upper atmosphere, such as the recombination of atoms which were photoionized by the sun during the day, luminescence caused by cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere, and chemiluminescence caused mainly by oxygen and nitrogen reacting with hydroxyl ions at heights of a few hundred kilometres. It is not noticeable during the daytime because of the scattered light from the sun.

If what is seen in the photos were true airglow, it would be similarly bright all of the way around the horizon as it would be on the horizon closest to the sun's current position and in the direction of a 120 km wide metropolis with a population of roughly 2.5 million people. Yet we don't see the same general glow on the horizon, in terms of either color or brightness, when the camera was pointed to the southeast. It would also probably influence the sky higher overhead with red and blue tints more than is evident compared to the horizon when looking north.

Both of the photos with the camera pointed north were taken within two hours of the end of astronomical twilight. Astronomical twilight is defined for real time observations with unassisted human eyes, not 30 second to 30 minute long exposures with a camera using a lens with an entrance pupil much larger than a fully dilated human iris.

• At 36°N three hours after sunset in mid-May the sun is only about 28° below the horizon.
• Even at local midnight, in high summer the sun is only about 30° below the northern horizon at latitudes of around 36°N.
• By contrast, in mid-winter from the same location the sun would be about 77° below the horizon at local midnight.