A giant Cross almost ended up atop Salt Lake's Ensign Peak; Also suggested for Timpanogos Peak

                                 Ensign Peak, center, and left of the Utah State Capitol.



By Lynn Arave

A giant cement cross almost ended up on the top of Ensign Peak in 1916 -- and was even suggested for Timpanogos Peak instead.

"Church is granted permit to place cross on peak" was a May 25, 1916 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper.
The Salt Lake City Commission had voted 4-1 to grant the request "to erect a reinforced concrete cross on Ensign Peak, as a memorial to the pioneers and to typify that 'This is the place.'"
C.W. Nibley, Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had petitioned the Commission with the request.
"Cross to be built upon Ensign Peak" was a May 26, 1916 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Commissioner W.H. Shearman cast the only opposing vote and said that the proposal had already generated too much controversy. He said the American Flag along should grace the top of the peak.

                         Today's trail up the east side of Ensign Peak.

Why didn't the cross ever get built?

-"Jews are opposed to cross on peak" was a May 23, 1916 Salt Lake Tribune headline. Two Rabbis argued that public ground is not the place for a religious symbol of any type and that it would not be a symbol representative of all citizens of Salt Lake City. They also stated that such a public cross would arouse bitterness and destroy a united spirit of citizenship in the City.

-"Religion should not be advertised on the mountain tops, but rather should be housed in the human heart," Rabbi William Rice stated.

- In a counter argument, Commissioner Karl A. Scheid stated:
"That the Mormon Church, which has so frequently and
So unjustly been accused of not being a Christian church at all, should volunteer to place Christianity's most sacred emblem on Ensign Peak, that place so hallowed by the memory of pioneers days, is to my mind and event of first importance."

-Eventually even LDS Church Apostle Orson F. Whitney spoke against a cross on Ensign Peak. He said the cross was a Catholic symbol and that if it should be placed anywhere, it should be on Mount Timpanogos, in memory of Father Escalante -- the first White Man known to visit Utah Valley. (Salt Lake Tribune, May 30, 1916).

-Utah State Senator George H. Dern (also eventually a Utah Governor) proposed that Utah should construct a giant concrete cross in Utah over the entire state. That is, highway-wise Utah should build a 16-foot-wide concrete road that goes from the north end of Utah at the Idaho line to the south end of the state at Arizona; and another road from the Colorado line to Nevada -- and this a giant "cross" covering the entire state -- one that would open the state to travel and tourism and a "cross" that would not be controversial. (Salt Lake Tribune May 24, 1916).

-The proposal for the cross on Ensign Peak was challenged in the local courts and eventually the plan just faded away -- probably, mainly because of the concerns of the non-LDS Churches in Salt Lake.

                    The eventual non-controversial pioneer monument atop Ensign Peak today.

The current monument atop Ensign Peak was built in the mid-1930s, with the first stone  laid in July of 1934.