Camp Steiner in its early days: Nearest road nearly 2 miles distant

          Looking down on Camp Steiner and Scout Lake  (center) from Bald Mountain.

CAMP Steiner, in the High Uintas of Utah, is the highest elevation Boy Scout camp in the United States, sitting at 10.400 feet above sea level.
But when did this Scout camp begin?
According to the Great Salt Lake Boy Scouts Council (www.saltlakescouts.org/steiner), Camp Steiner dates back to 1930.
However, the first newspaper reference on the camp was published not until July 17, 1933 in the Salt Lake Telegram.
And, it was the Telegram newspaper on July 27, 1935 that featured Camp Steiner in a lengthy report under the headline of: "125 Salt Lake Boy Scouts go back to nature at Camp Steiner for period of training and play in Lofty Granddaddy Lake area."
Camp Steiner was named for George A. Steiner, general manager of American Linen Supply Company, a key supporter and donor of the facility.
Located around aptly named Scout Lake, this camp is also only a few miles away from Utah's famous Mirror Lake.

                          Mirror Lake, with Bald Mountain in the background.

In 1935, the road through the High Uintas was limited. The Telegram report from that year stated: "The automobile road ends at Mirror Lake, a mile and three-quarters away, and all supplies have to be packed into camp."
(That's not the case today, as the "Mirror Lake Highway" (U-150) slices right through the mountains and even connects with Evanston, Wyoming.)
Back in 1935, a single structure, a log cabin, served as headquarters for the camp. All users slept in tents. It was to be a few years before other cabins were built.

                    A view of the some of the lofty lakes near Camp Steiner.

The beginnings of Camp Kiesel: Four different sites considered

                                                  The open area at Camp Kielsel.

CAMP Kiesel is a household word among Boy Scouts in the Ogden, Utah area. A popular day camp, this facility dates back to 1925 and mostly serves Cub Scouts today.
However, four different sites to considered as possible locations before the South Fork "narrows" location was selected.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of Feb. 27, 1925, possible camps sites were also debated, including ones along the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the Ogden River.

                           Water sports at the south end of Camp Kiesel.

The camp was to be named in honor of the late Fred J. Kiesel. He was a former Ogden City Mayor and is family had donated $3,500 toward a future Boy Scout camp east of Ogden. ($3,500 is almost $50,000 in today's 2018 dollar values.)
Back then, it wasn't the Trapper Trails Boy Scout Council that operated in the Ogden area, it was called the Ogden Gateway Council of Boy Scouts of America. 
According to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of May 13, 1925, a committee of businessmen (C. B. Empey, W.H. Shearman, Gus Wright, A.P. Merrill,  J.W. Ellington and John L. Taylor) made the site selection, whose location was about a mile north of the South fork "narrows" and near what was called "Big Spring," at the junction of Spring Canyon and Wheatgrass Canyon.

                            A typical outdoor class at Camp Keisel.

Then, an architect began to make plans for the site.
Development moved quickly and the camp first opened in June of 1925, with 60 Boy Scouts there on opening day. 
Camp Kiesel was officially dedicated on July 5, 1925, and a shooting expo was one of its initial grand-opening features.

                                           The BB gun shooting range at Camp Kiesel.

Back when a human life in Utah was ‘worth’ only $2.66 and when 41 head of cattle drowned in the Great Salt Lake

                                              A modern day traffic accident in Layton City.

 “ONE human life -- $2.66. That is the price placed upon life per individual in Utah by those changed with enforcement of the state’s traffic laws,” the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of Nov. 19, 1943 reported.

The Telegram’s headline was “Utah’s 84 traffic deaths this year emphasize trivial cost of killing.”

The story continued: “On the basis of 84 persons killed in Utah traffic (accidents) to date this year, the average fine paid to fix responsibility for each fatal mishap totaled only $2.66. There were no jail sentences imposed. In only three cases have manslaughter charges been filed. In only six of the 12 fatalities in Salt Lake City have any kind of charges been filed.

The story reported that the $2.66 is the average Utah fine assessed for the blame in a fatal accident. The fine averaged $5.76 in Salt Lake and only $1.95 elsewhere in Utah.

The lengthy story then listed a summary of all 84 accidents.

This report, given during the middle of World War II, obviously sought to reduce traffic fatalities and was a precursor to safety campaigns by the Utah Highway Patrol.

(Note that $2.66 in 1943 monetary value is equal to $38.80 in today’s dollar values.)

                        The Great Salt Lake north of Fremont Island.

-“Herd of stampeded cattle meet death in the Lake” was an April 12, 1900 headline in the Salt Lake Herald newspaper.

Some 200 head of cattle were grazing in a pasture between Hooper and Syracuse. Then, Joseph Manning of Hooper reported that a great storm arose and the herd stampeded to the west and even the Great Salt Lake didn’t stop them.

Ultimately the cattle ended up more than a dozen miles to the northwest, near Little Mountain.

“Many of them were swamped in the mud and perished,” the story reported. “Others waded out till they became exhausted, and still others swam for miles. Some were found eighteen miles from shore. In all, 41 perished. Four were extricated from the mud alive.”

The animals belonged to a variety of ranchers in Davis and Weber counties.

In its report of the cattle drowning, the Davis County Clipper newspaper stated that old time residents of the area said that the strong east canyon winds also used to drive cattle from the Farmington area way out west to Antelope Island.

-The first newspaper mention of fog in Utah territory was in the Deseret News of Dec. 15, 1853.

The report described the fog in Salt Lake City as very deep and dark, very much like the English fogs of fall, winter and spring.

          The Little Mountain area, as viewed from the north end of Fremont Island.

-Here’s how some Utah residents of 1881 helped the poor: “Tomorrow morning Mr. A. Greenwell and a party of nimrods are going to the Little Mountain (west of Ogden), in quest of rabbits. They say they will return in the evening, with 400 and distribute them to the hungry free gratis, on Fourth Street (of Ogden).” From the Ogden Herald, Nov. 8, 1881.

-Back in 1910, the early days of the automobile, travel was slow, particularly on rough and out-of-the-way roads. For example, the Ogden Standard newspaper of Feb. 28, 1910 reported that it took residents of Hooper some three hours to travel to Ogden. J.H. Fowles, a Hooper resident, said it ought to only take an hour to travel that distance. (Note it takes approximately 15-20 minutes to travel from Hooper to Ogden today.)

-The Salt Lake Tribune of Sept. 6, 1896 was a report of the Little Mountain area. It stated that the Native American settlers before the pioneers used Little Mountain as a chosen spot. They came to the spot to bury some of their dead.

                                                   The Kit Carson Cross on Fremont Island.


However, the same Tribune story displayed total ignorance over where the cross carved in stone on Fremont Island came from. This report stated the cross was already there when John C. Fremont and company arrived on the Isle in 1843. (In fact, team member Kit Carson himself carved that cross during their 1843 visit).

So, this newspaper report speculated that some earlier Christians – perhaps even Spanish missionaries must have visited the Island and carved that cross.

A Proposal in 1912 to add mystic charm to S.L. with various names changes -- Lone Peak, Cottonwood Canyons

JUST over a century ago, there was a brief effort to try and change some Salt Lake area geographical names, "to add mystic charm" and avoid the commonplace.
The Salt Lake Herald newspaper of July 25, 1912 stated that Joseph E. Caine suggested a change in some titles for the area during a speech given at Liberty Park.
City Creek and Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons were particularly mentioned as being too commonplace of names for an area so rich in pioneer history and effort.
"With such a world of romance in our history we should not have given to that magnificent gorge of the Wasatch so commonplace a name as Big Cottonwood Canyon. City Creek, Big and Little Cottonwood and Mill Creek Canyons, Twin Peaks and Lone Peak are all misnamed," the story reported. 
"There are a thousand cottonwood canyons in the western United States and as many mill creek canyons.Let us give to these and other great works of nature names that will mean something in the history of our state and that will carry with them the romantic charm of the days of the trail blazers."
Caine also suggested that Timpanogos be returned as the name for Utah Lake, as the Spanish explorers and Father Escalante had titled it.
He said more unusual name changers could "add to this state a mystic charm that will live forever in poetry, in painting and in song."
Sadly, Caine's suggestions were not heeded, or perhaps the commonplace names he wanted changed were already too permanent in the minds of Utahns.
And, certainly in the 21st Century, such names have well over a century of use.
Perhaps the "lone" example of a name Caine suggested that actually had an effort to alter it, was Lone Peak. For at least a few years in the mid 1910s, there was a temporary renaming to "Mount Jordan" instead. (Lone Peak is a distinctive, solitary peak at the far south end of the S.L. Valley.) The new name didn't stick, but it was used in many a newspaper story of that decade, including the S.L. Herald of Sept. 6, 1915.
Caine also neglected to mention that there are three sets of "Twin Peaks," found just along the length of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake County. Why that name repetition? Who knows, but "Double Peak" and North and South Twin could at least have been a little less confusing set of titles.

-Regarding Lone Peak, it was thrown back into public notice at the end of 1936 when a plan crashed on that mountain and yet could not be found for almost six months.
On Dec. 13, 1936, a Western Air Express transport plane crashed some 43 minutes before it was due at the Salt Lake Airport.
In  early June of 1937, some hikers found some airmail blown around near the top of the mountain and that led to finally locating the plane wreckage and the remains of its  four passengers and three crew members, finally ending the tragic suspense of the disaster.
An elevation of 11,000 feet above sea level, an arctic-like weather made location and recovery vert difficult.
It was believed, according to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of June 7, 1937, that it the aircraft had just been another 20 to 25 feet higher, it would have cleared the granite mountaintop safely.

-Lone Peak was back in the news about 18 months later when four Salt Lake men climbed Lone Peak's summit in a record three hours and 58 minutes.
Orson Spencer, Odell Pedersen, W.C. Kamp and Keith Anderson made the speedy climb from the Alpine side, They are members of the Wasatch Mountain Club and their exploit was reported in the Telegram of Oct. 3, 1938.

(-Other sources: “Utah Place Names,”: by John W. Van Cott and the Salt Lake Tribune, May 28, 1916.)

-Originally published in the Deseret News on Dec. 26, 2017.

Brigham Young used bodyguards too at times

                                   A statue of Brigham Young.

THERE'S probably not a single family in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that boasts a lengthy history dating back to the time of the Prophet Joseph Smith that doesn't claim that at least one of their ancestors was a bodyguard to the Prophet.
However, Brigham Young, the successor to President Smith, also used bodyguards at times.
For example, the Deseret News of May 2, 1877, reported that "a guard of about 25 young men" accompanied President Young from St. George to Beaver. This was an army of protection for the church leader.
"The President has deemed this precaution necessary, it is said, on account of threats made by the sons of  John D. Lee," the Deseret News story stated.

A trio of unusually titled mountain ranges in Utah -- San Francisco, Wah Wah and Confusion

                                              Kings Peak, center, highest point in Utah.

UTAH boasts a fleet of lofty mountain ranges. There are the kingpin of tall ranges -- the High Uintas, the La Sals, the Wasatch and the Tushar range.
However, the Beehive State also contains dozens of shorter mountain ranges, some remote and others far lesser-known.
For example, Utah has its own San Francisco Mountains, located west of Millard. And, in that same are are the Wah Wah Mountains. This particular area has a colorful mining history that dates back to the 1870 and the Wah Wah Range rises to more than 8,400 feet above sea level. The downside to this area is that it is very dry, with few regular sources of water.
Found west of Delta is another unusually name mountain string -- the Confusion Range. This mountain terrain was first publicly mentioned in an 1894 newspaper account and rises to a maximum of 7,430 feet.
-There are also periodic efforts in Utah to rename some natural features that are sometime deemed offensive in the 21st Century era of political correctness.
For example, Squaw Peak in Provo Canyon is one of these possibly demeaning titles.
However, there is also a same-named "Squaw Peak" located west of Milford. And there is also a "Squaw Springs" found in the La Sal Mountains.

The first sermon ever delivered in Utah territory

WHAT was the first sermon ever delivered in Utah?

According to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of July 24, 1921, it was delivered by a Mormon Apostle, Orson Pratt, on July 24, 1847, soon after the first group of pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

                                             Elder Orson Pratt

Elder Pratt based his talk on two verses from the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Chapter 52, verses 7-8:

7. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishethpeace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

8. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion."

(Note that LDS Church President Brigham Young was too ill that day to give a discourse.)

Elder Pratt's discourse was an inspiration to the pioneers, since they had all safely made the trek to the Salt Lake Valley.
-And, on July 24, 1921, some LDS Church members met in Parley's Canyon (named after Elder Pratt's older brother, Parley), and held a campfire reunion to honor Orson Pratt and other pioneers. Many of this group were descendants of Pratt himself.