PARADES,
races, food and fireworks are commons ways that Utahns celebrate Pioneer Day
today. The early pioneers sometimes had parades too, but sometimes they just wanted
to escape the summer heat in the mountains.
“The
excursion to the head waters of Big Cottonwood” was an Aug. 1, 1860 headline in
the Deseret News and told of more than 1,100 Salt Lake residents who traveled
to the upper reaches of the canyon for the holiday, 13 years after the pioneers
entered the valley.
A “Committee
of Arrangements” lessened the confusion and overcrowding in the canyon by
assigning who camped where. There was also a “Martial Band,” in front of the
main procession of wagons and horses, that played “Happy Land” and “Du Dah.”
As President
Young’s party arrived at the center of the camp on July 23, Captain Pitt’s
Nauvoo Brass Band played “God Save the King” and the “Star Spangled Banner.”
One of
President Heber C. Kimball’s wagons had a slight mishap, but that just meant a
half-hour delay for his group.
A group of
emigrants headed to California had also heard of the camping excursion and when
they arrived unannounced, they were welcomed heartily and assigned a place to enjoy the festivities too.
During the
day, there was a lot of fishing going on, as well as plans being made for the
holiday. Before dusk, Joseph A. Young climbed the highest tree on the grounds
and placed a U.S. flag there. However, a sudden thunderstorm struck and drenching
rain sent everyone scurrying to their wagons or tents.
At 6 a.m. on
July 24, a salute of three guns were fired in honor the First Presidency of the
Church, with music playing in between.
At 9 a.m.,
there were four bands playing, with each one stationed evenly through the
campgrounds. Then, a 13-gun salute was fired to represent each year spent in
the S.L. Valley.
Starting at
10 a.m., there were amusements and food and three different boweries. Sporting
games included running, leaping and stone throwing.
At 6 p.m., a
12-gun salute was fired in honor of the Church’s 12 Apostles. At 10 p.m., one
of the bands played “Home Sweet Home.”
At the break
of day on July 25, the Martial Band awakened the camp. Breakfast was cooked and
by 9 a.m., all the group was headed back to Salt Lake City.
In
descending the mountains, one of President Young’s carriages rolled over twice
and landed in the creek, but the result was only “very slight injury and
inconvenience.”
-Jump
forward to 1931 and the Salt Lake Telegram of July 25 that year told how
“Pioneers retrace travel of days in a few minutes.” Ten Salt Lake senior
citizens on July 24 were carried across the airport in a covered wagon, led by
six oxen and then boarded an airplane. The plane flew over Little Mountain and
Emigration Canyon and covered in nine minutes what took ox and wagon teams in
the vanguard pioneer group of 1847 several days to traverse, some 84 years
prior.
None of the
group had ever flown before, but not one showed any ill effects from the trip.
“It beats
the ox team and I’m ready to go any time again,” Robert Sweeten, age 91, a
blind man, said to the Telegram.
MORE
HISTORY:
The summit of Mt. Ogden today.
-“The
‘Herald’ on High” was a Sept. 25, 1882 headline in the Ogden Herald. Some
employees of the newspaper climbed Mount Ogden, the highest point to the east
of Ogden City and found what a group from the newspaper had left on the peak on
July 5, 1881 still there.
Besides a
letter and blank pages placed under a rock, the group found nailed to a
flagstaff, a copy of the Ogden Herald printed on linen and still readable.
“Now let
anybody arise and deny that the Ogden Herald has the HIGHEST circulation of any
paper in the territory,” the story concluded.
The high tech apparatus on Mt. Ogden's summit today.
-“Mountain
climbing fad” was an Oct. 2, 1911 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. The story
stated how Ogden City had this recent fascination with hiking mountains and
from Ogden Canyon to Malan’s Heights, there were hundreds of people who had
went on mountain climbs the past four months, since early June.
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