III
THE CAPITAL OF MORMONDOM
1.
Salt Lake City is the religious headquarters, the American Mecca, of about one million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who live both in the western part of the United States and throughout the world.
Further, the geographical limits of its cultural and commercial areas spread out over a vast intermountain empire in which reside approximately two million people who are non-Mormon as well as Mormon. The regular territory of salesmen representing the larger Salt Lake City wholesale houses includes all of Utah and Idaho, the western half of Montana and Wyoming, a corner of Colorado, the northern half of Arizona and almost all of Nevada except Washoe county which, with its Reno, more properly falls into the orbit of Pacific Coast trade.
Located at the "Crossroads of the West," this picturesque city lies in the very heart of scenic America and is the lush metropolis in the midst of a desert through which annually clears a sizable segment of a vacation-hungry nation's population.
Historically, the place is unique among modern cities of the world. It is the fulfillment of a prophet's dream. Its streets were laid out and its destiny was predicted by one of the most forceful, far-seeing, two-fisted leaders of men in all the annals of the human race. Its first log and adobe houses were built, its canals dug and its water-flumes constructed by the hands of a determined and zealous population that had migrated thousands of miles across a wild land inhabited by hostile savages. Its temple and tabernacle and civilization are a monument to the perseverance, faith and united strength of those believers in "The true and ancient Church of Jesus Christ," who suffered and overcame almost unbearable hardships in their pursuit of a theocratic ideal as strange to Americans of that day as it was to the inhabitants of any part of the Old World.
It was a planned city. Its broad streets, its gutters flowing with crystal clear water from melted mountain snows, and the wholesome philosophy of its people all are in marked contrast to traffic-congested crooked streets, inadequate storm-sewers and clashing cultures of many cities that just grew.
Further, the geographical limits of its cultural and commercial areas spread out over a vast intermountain empire in which reside approximately two million people who are non-Mormon as well as Mormon. The regular territory of salesmen representing the larger Salt Lake City wholesale houses includes all of Utah and Idaho, the western half of Montana and Wyoming, a corner of Colorado, the northern half of Arizona and almost all of Nevada except Washoe county which, with its Reno, more properly falls into the orbit of Pacific Coast trade.
Located at the "Crossroads of the West," this picturesque city lies in the very heart of scenic America and is the lush metropolis in the midst of a desert through which annually clears a sizable segment of a vacation-hungry nation's population.
Historically, the place is unique among modern cities of the world. It is the fulfillment of a prophet's dream. Its streets were laid out and its destiny was predicted by one of the most forceful, far-seeing, two-fisted leaders of men in all the annals of the human race. Its first log and adobe houses were built, its canals dug and its water-flumes constructed by the hands of a determined and zealous population that had migrated thousands of miles across a wild land inhabited by hostile savages. Its temple and tabernacle and civilization are a monument to the perseverance, faith and united strength of those believers in "The true and ancient Church of Jesus Christ," who suffered and overcame almost unbearable hardships in their pursuit of a theocratic ideal as strange to Americans of that day as it was to the inhabitants of any part of the Old World.
It was a planned city. Its broad streets, its gutters flowing with crystal clear water from melted mountain snows, and the wholesome philosophy of its people all are in marked contrast to traffic-congested crooked streets, inadequate storm-sewers and clashing cultures of many cities that just grew.
2.
It was a grand moment in modern history when a band of weary emigrants emerged from a canyon pass in the Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains and were able to see the valley of the Great Salt Lake that stretched out for miles before them.
A vanguard of their leaders and scouts reined their footsore horses on the edge of a broad benchland that overlooked the spacious valley. They respectfully gathered behind and beside the great man whose genius for organization and strength of personality had brought them so far. They eagerly spurred their mounts close to him, to hear what he'd say. The fate of a civilization, of a full new way of life, the course of a culture and the future of a great people hung on his words. All the multitude behind them, carefully picked and hardy though they were, were weary. Their bones ached from long hours in movement and chilly nights spent sleeping on hard ground, their slumbers fitful from the ever-present danger of being scalped by Indians. And yet farther back, an ever-increasing horde of Saints was preparing for the long trek. What would happen to these people? When would all this travel end? What would Brother Brigham decide to do?
Farther back in the Rockies, scouts from the Pacific slope had met the advance guard of the emigrant train. Eloquent men had tried to persuade President Young to continue the march on to the lush lands along the coast. But he had shaken his stubborn head and replied "No" to all entreaties.
So now they waited.
The weight that hung on his words was fully comprehended by this red-bearded man of destiny who, though still on the younger side of middle age, already had become a patriarch as powerful, as colorful, as awe-inspiring as many a one of ancient Biblical days.
His eyes beheld the vastness of a plain without trees that gave way in the distance to waters of a great inland sea. His vision swept the castellated mountains that appeared to encircle the valley like a colossal coronet.
"This is the place," he said simply.
In the century since that day, Mormons have made much of these four words and have blazoned them as a slogan around which to rally memories and significance of pioneer exploits. If the young and vigorous philosophy of the Latter-day Saints continues to extend its domain during the next few centuries as it has in the one just past, this short sentence uttered by Brigham Young might well become one of the crucial turning-points of world history.
It was while I viewed Salt Lake City from the back of a horse at this same point in July, 1941, that the idea first came to me to write this book. I envisioned the completed work, substantially as you are reading it today. It seemed an easy task, then. I had the full confidence that came from years of successful journalism behind me, and the over-confidence of a young army officer who hadn't yet heard the death-rattle of enemy machine guns. A long war and seemingly interminable vicissitudes through six years, and a year and a half of actual writing, editing, checking, rewriting, have at last seen most of that vision put onto paper. When I sat there astride my black gelding whose sleek sides and hindquarters glistened in the warm sunlight because his belly for a long time had been filled twice a day with No. 1 oats from the army quartermaster's overflowing bins, there was only a granite shaft and a brief inscription to mark the spot where, 94 years before, Brother Brigham and the captains of his host halted their gaunt grassfed eastern mounts that had survived the rigors of crossing a continent.
Today, in the year 1947, when Mormondom is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Salt Lake City, a magnificent monument is going up at that location and the sentence, "This is the place," is being more deeply etched into Mormon history, Mormon literature and Mormon hearts.
A vanguard of their leaders and scouts reined their footsore horses on the edge of a broad benchland that overlooked the spacious valley. They respectfully gathered behind and beside the great man whose genius for organization and strength of personality had brought them so far. They eagerly spurred their mounts close to him, to hear what he'd say. The fate of a civilization, of a full new way of life, the course of a culture and the future of a great people hung on his words. All the multitude behind them, carefully picked and hardy though they were, were weary. Their bones ached from long hours in movement and chilly nights spent sleeping on hard ground, their slumbers fitful from the ever-present danger of being scalped by Indians. And yet farther back, an ever-increasing horde of Saints was preparing for the long trek. What would happen to these people? When would all this travel end? What would Brother Brigham decide to do?
Farther back in the Rockies, scouts from the Pacific slope had met the advance guard of the emigrant train. Eloquent men had tried to persuade President Young to continue the march on to the lush lands along the coast. But he had shaken his stubborn head and replied "No" to all entreaties.
So now they waited.
The weight that hung on his words was fully comprehended by this red-bearded man of destiny who, though still on the younger side of middle age, already had become a patriarch as powerful, as colorful, as awe-inspiring as many a one of ancient Biblical days.
His eyes beheld the vastness of a plain without trees that gave way in the distance to waters of a great inland sea. His vision swept the castellated mountains that appeared to encircle the valley like a colossal coronet.
"This is the place," he said simply.
In the century since that day, Mormons have made much of these four words and have blazoned them as a slogan around which to rally memories and significance of pioneer exploits. If the young and vigorous philosophy of the Latter-day Saints continues to extend its domain during the next few centuries as it has in the one just past, this short sentence uttered by Brigham Young might well become one of the crucial turning-points of world history.
It was while I viewed Salt Lake City from the back of a horse at this same point in July, 1941, that the idea first came to me to write this book. I envisioned the completed work, substantially as you are reading it today. It seemed an easy task, then. I had the full confidence that came from years of successful journalism behind me, and the over-confidence of a young army officer who hadn't yet heard the death-rattle of enemy machine guns. A long war and seemingly interminable vicissitudes through six years, and a year and a half of actual writing, editing, checking, rewriting, have at last seen most of that vision put onto paper. When I sat there astride my black gelding whose sleek sides and hindquarters glistened in the warm sunlight because his belly for a long time had been filled twice a day with No. 1 oats from the army quartermaster's overflowing bins, there was only a granite shaft and a brief inscription to mark the spot where, 94 years before, Brother Brigham and the captains of his host halted their gaunt grassfed eastern mounts that had survived the rigors of crossing a continent.
Today, in the year 1947, when Mormondom is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Salt Lake City, a magnificent monument is going up at that location and the sentence, "This is the place," is being more deeply etched into Mormon history, Mormon literature and Mormon hearts.
3.
Throughout the city there are many reminders of the days of romantic, feverish activity in which the metropolis came into existence. A people proud of their ancestry and noble pioneer past have preserved and enriched much to recall the early period.
They also have neglected to preserve some of their most significant and distinctive landmarks. Houses in the pioneer days were built of three kinds of material: logs, adobe or stone. Timbers for log structures were felled and hewn in mountain canyons where snowfed streams had watered growing trees. The logs were drawn down into the valley by slow oxteam. This was hard and slow labor. Naturally, the houses that resulted were small. For the most part, they had only one room, with side walls no more than six feet high, and the ceiling sloping upward inside to a central ridgepole to give headroom.
More extensive houses soon were built with adobe. This material was a sunbaked brick, often made right on the spot where the house was erected by mixing the heavy silicate soil into a mud and reinforcing it with straw. Spotted here and there through the city, some of these adobes of another era actually are used as homes today. It is these adobe dwellings that are neglected. To me, coming into the culture with the fresh view of an outsider and a somewhat critical attitude, Salt Lake City's adobe houses are eloquent story-tellers from a bygone day. To most of the present leaders of the church and city, the adobe house has been a familiar sight since childhood. Few seem to realize how rapidly the modernized city is sweeping away and swallowing up these potentially beautiful old buildings, and no organized effort whatever seems to have been made to save them.
Within a few blocks of the temple there are today several adobe homes of the very early period. They for the most part are neglected and are tumbling into ruin, according to the varying vicissitudes of fortune of the owners or occupants. In some cases, "modern" wings have been erected of brick or lumber to hide these old places, producing a jerrybuilt effect that is neither fish nor fowl. In their urge to save remnants of their history for posterity, the Mormons have laboriously protected the relics of President Young's grandeur, have put up a canopy to keep rainfall off the first house ever built in Utah, have placed a high wall around their famous temple, and have exalted the heroes who pulled handcarts across the plains. All these things are extremes. They have ignored the average. Being themselves so much a part of their unique civilization that they cannot comprehend wherein it differs from the main stream of American culture, they fail to recognize the fact that it is the average Mormon family, represented in the earlier generations by these crumbling adobe dwellings, that really tells the story of the pioneer efforts of the Saints.
At least a dozen of the best located of these adobe houses ought to be at once set apart as shrines, with all extraneous carpentry and masonry removed, and completely restored to their pristine simplicity, ought to be furnished with sturdy reproductions of the average family furniture of the day. Unless this is done very soon, apartment houses and skyscrapers will close in and forever brand Salt Lake City as just another American city.
Pioneer transportation was so difficult that only the very wealthy could afford homes built of cut stone. The stone was quarried in mountains east of the city and drawn down onto the plain only at the expense of great toil. The residence of Brigham Young, which he named Lion House in memory of his New England home, was built of stones. Its erection took place under the watchful eye of the best architect in the settlement. Lion House stands in full use today and barring an earthquake or some similar catastrophe, will be just as sound and usable many more centuries hence.
The main floor of Lion House is a church social center, and a regular meeting place for many Mutual Improvement Society groups. In the huge basement of the building is a cooperative church-operated cafeteria, where meals are served at nearly cost to residents of the nearby mission home who are preparing to go out and preach to the world. These people take their meals in the same dining room in which President Brigham Young and his family ate when they occupied the house. The top floor of the edifice is devoted to a great number of rooms, each of which is lighted by a steeply arched gable. These gables form a serrated row down the long roofline. The many rooms were once occupied by Brigham Young's many wives.
Standing beside Lion House, and adjacent to the sidewalk is a neat little building that was the office of President Young. It is marked with a bronze plaque and is one of the city's tourist attractions.
On the corner of the same block is palatial Beehive House, which was the home of a later president of the church, Joseph F. Smith, and his numerous wives and children. Beehive House now is used as a club residence for L.D.S. girls who are working in the city and are away from home - a sort of Mormon YWCA. This house stands back somewhat from the corner, with a small lawn before it on two sides. A bronze tablet is located on its wall, in the shade of a long porch. Visitors are welcome here during normal working hours, as they are in most other Mormon historical spots. Around the corner, and along State street a couple of doors are located the houses occupied by the L.D.S. missionary home.
Arched over State street, which narrows here on the Beehive House corner, is Eagle Gate, a distinctive piece of wood carving that marked this spot as the entrance to Brigham Young's estate, which stretched away to the north from this boundary in the early days. Only a few hundred yards away is the grave in which the body of Brigham Young was laid to rest on his own land in a custom common among Mormons.
In 1941, a friend of mine, a young officer whose home had been in New York and who was transferred to duty at our station in Ft. Douglas, was delighted to find a well furnished apartment that overlooked a tiny square park hidden in the middle of a crowded block. When he examined the beautiful little park more closely, however, he was surprised to learn that it was the private family burying ground of Heber C. Kimball, an L.D.S. apostle and contemporary of Brigham Young.
The forceful spirit of Brother Brigham looms large in mementoes preserved today in Salt Lake City. The recorded facts of his life are many and interesting. But legion, and more interesting, are the tall tales, many of them apocryphal, but almost any of them possible, that have survived in the oral folklore of the people. There is not one family which was here in the pioneer days that does not cherish its own accounts of experiences with Brother Brigham. The overshadowing influence of this patriarchal American assails the easterner upon his arrival in the mountain metropolis. Brigham was an astute businessman, and typical of the lore that has accumulated around his personality is the way in which residents of Salt Lake City point out the pioneer statue to newcomers. This statue is located at the intersection of South Temple and Main streets, near Temple Square. Bas-relief figures around its base depict a panorama of the pioneer trek. A huge bronze figure of Brigham himself tops the monument. Here he assumes a typical pose, waggish Salt Lakers say, with his palm outstretched toward Zion's Trust & Savings Bank, and his back to the temple!
They also have neglected to preserve some of their most significant and distinctive landmarks. Houses in the pioneer days were built of three kinds of material: logs, adobe or stone. Timbers for log structures were felled and hewn in mountain canyons where snowfed streams had watered growing trees. The logs were drawn down into the valley by slow oxteam. This was hard and slow labor. Naturally, the houses that resulted were small. For the most part, they had only one room, with side walls no more than six feet high, and the ceiling sloping upward inside to a central ridgepole to give headroom.
More extensive houses soon were built with adobe. This material was a sunbaked brick, often made right on the spot where the house was erected by mixing the heavy silicate soil into a mud and reinforcing it with straw. Spotted here and there through the city, some of these adobes of another era actually are used as homes today. It is these adobe dwellings that are neglected. To me, coming into the culture with the fresh view of an outsider and a somewhat critical attitude, Salt Lake City's adobe houses are eloquent story-tellers from a bygone day. To most of the present leaders of the church and city, the adobe house has been a familiar sight since childhood. Few seem to realize how rapidly the modernized city is sweeping away and swallowing up these potentially beautiful old buildings, and no organized effort whatever seems to have been made to save them.
Within a few blocks of the temple there are today several adobe homes of the very early period. They for the most part are neglected and are tumbling into ruin, according to the varying vicissitudes of fortune of the owners or occupants. In some cases, "modern" wings have been erected of brick or lumber to hide these old places, producing a jerrybuilt effect that is neither fish nor fowl. In their urge to save remnants of their history for posterity, the Mormons have laboriously protected the relics of President Young's grandeur, have put up a canopy to keep rainfall off the first house ever built in Utah, have placed a high wall around their famous temple, and have exalted the heroes who pulled handcarts across the plains. All these things are extremes. They have ignored the average. Being themselves so much a part of their unique civilization that they cannot comprehend wherein it differs from the main stream of American culture, they fail to recognize the fact that it is the average Mormon family, represented in the earlier generations by these crumbling adobe dwellings, that really tells the story of the pioneer efforts of the Saints.
At least a dozen of the best located of these adobe houses ought to be at once set apart as shrines, with all extraneous carpentry and masonry removed, and completely restored to their pristine simplicity, ought to be furnished with sturdy reproductions of the average family furniture of the day. Unless this is done very soon, apartment houses and skyscrapers will close in and forever brand Salt Lake City as just another American city.
Pioneer transportation was so difficult that only the very wealthy could afford homes built of cut stone. The stone was quarried in mountains east of the city and drawn down onto the plain only at the expense of great toil. The residence of Brigham Young, which he named Lion House in memory of his New England home, was built of stones. Its erection took place under the watchful eye of the best architect in the settlement. Lion House stands in full use today and barring an earthquake or some similar catastrophe, will be just as sound and usable many more centuries hence.
The main floor of Lion House is a church social center, and a regular meeting place for many Mutual Improvement Society groups. In the huge basement of the building is a cooperative church-operated cafeteria, where meals are served at nearly cost to residents of the nearby mission home who are preparing to go out and preach to the world. These people take their meals in the same dining room in which President Brigham Young and his family ate when they occupied the house. The top floor of the edifice is devoted to a great number of rooms, each of which is lighted by a steeply arched gable. These gables form a serrated row down the long roofline. The many rooms were once occupied by Brigham Young's many wives.
Standing beside Lion House, and adjacent to the sidewalk is a neat little building that was the office of President Young. It is marked with a bronze plaque and is one of the city's tourist attractions.
On the corner of the same block is palatial Beehive House, which was the home of a later president of the church, Joseph F. Smith, and his numerous wives and children. Beehive House now is used as a club residence for L.D.S. girls who are working in the city and are away from home - a sort of Mormon YWCA. This house stands back somewhat from the corner, with a small lawn before it on two sides. A bronze tablet is located on its wall, in the shade of a long porch. Visitors are welcome here during normal working hours, as they are in most other Mormon historical spots. Around the corner, and along State street a couple of doors are located the houses occupied by the L.D.S. missionary home.
Arched over State street, which narrows here on the Beehive House corner, is Eagle Gate, a distinctive piece of wood carving that marked this spot as the entrance to Brigham Young's estate, which stretched away to the north from this boundary in the early days. Only a few hundred yards away is the grave in which the body of Brigham Young was laid to rest on his own land in a custom common among Mormons.
In 1941, a friend of mine, a young officer whose home had been in New York and who was transferred to duty at our station in Ft. Douglas, was delighted to find a well furnished apartment that overlooked a tiny square park hidden in the middle of a crowded block. When he examined the beautiful little park more closely, however, he was surprised to learn that it was the private family burying ground of Heber C. Kimball, an L.D.S. apostle and contemporary of Brigham Young.
The forceful spirit of Brother Brigham looms large in mementoes preserved today in Salt Lake City. The recorded facts of his life are many and interesting. But legion, and more interesting, are the tall tales, many of them apocryphal, but almost any of them possible, that have survived in the oral folklore of the people. There is not one family which was here in the pioneer days that does not cherish its own accounts of experiences with Brother Brigham. The overshadowing influence of this patriarchal American assails the easterner upon his arrival in the mountain metropolis. Brigham was an astute businessman, and typical of the lore that has accumulated around his personality is the way in which residents of Salt Lake City point out the pioneer statue to newcomers. This statue is located at the intersection of South Temple and Main streets, near Temple Square. Bas-relief figures around its base depict a panorama of the pioneer trek. A huge bronze figure of Brigham himself tops the monument. Here he assumes a typical pose, waggish Salt Lakers say, with his palm outstretched toward Zion's Trust & Savings Bank, and his back to the temple!
4.
Center of world relgious activities of Latter-day Saints is Temple Square. It occupies a high-walled enclosure that covers about as much ground as four ordinary city blocks in Des Moines, or Little Rock, or Atlantic City. The four main buildings found here are the temple, the tabernacle, Assembly hall and a museum in which is located the church's Bureau of Information.
Its beautifully landscaped grounds are a perfect setting for life-sized statues of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith, both martyrs to the cause of their faith.
Active propaganda agencies of the church and genuine interest by tourists and travelers have spread all over the earth the fame of Seagull Monument, which stands in the center of a pool before Assembly hall. This shaft, topped by a golden gull, commemorates a miraculous occurence in early Utah history. At a critical time not long after the pioneers came, when they still had been unable to lay away any surplus food stores, the crops upon which they and their livestock were depending for subsistence were threatened with destruction by uncountable swarms of crickets. The settlers worked to the point of exhaustion in a vain effort to stop the plague of voracious insects bent upon stripping every fibre of their crops. They tried to plow the pests under. They diverted streams of water in an effort to drown them. They tried to burn them when they crossed patches of ground on which stood dried grass. They nearly flailed their arms out of their sockets beating back the insect hordes that, nevertheless, converged on the ripening foods. Just at the moment when it seemed that all was lost, and that the pioneers would face certain starvation, great flocks of seagulls winged in from the Salt Lake and devoured the crickets. Both the gulls and the crickets were in almost unbelievable numbers. The L.D.S. church recognized this as an act of divine intervention. The statue that memorializes the miracle is said by the Salt Lake City chamber of commerce to be the only monument in all the world that has been erected to wild birdlife.
An especially photogenic architectural pile, the Salt Lake City temple is pictured in countless pieces of Mormon literature. Scores of artists and photographers have portrayed it as it has appeared in all seasons, and their works on this subject adorn the walls of thousands of homes in widely scattered spots around the globe. Its spires streaching heavenward - Its distinctively shaped windows - Its huge symbolic doors - All set it apart and make it the unmistakable focus of hopes and aspirations of all Mormons.
The edifice was under construction for a period of forty years that ended in 1893. It was build of gray granite quarried in Little Cottonwood canyon and hauled the intervening 25 miles by varying means of transportation that began with oxcarts. A canal that later served to bring water for irrigation at first was dug for the purpose of floating down building stone for the temple.
Like all other Mormon temples, the Salt Lake City temple is reserved for sacred rites. Casual visitors may not enter it. Indeed, not all Mormons may go inside, but only those who adequately live their religion and conscientiously prepare themselves for an appearance in the house of the Lord. Temple rites are explained in another part of this book.
Atop the temple's highest spire is a statue of the Angel Moroni. It is made of hammered bronze and is covered with pure gold leaf. Nearly every Mormon, wherever he may live in the world, cherishes an ambition to go inside the Sale Lake City temple before he dies.
Visitors of all faiths are welcome in the Salt Lake tabernacle. This is one of the world's most astounding buildings. It possesses a seating capacity of eight thousand people, and is used for many types of meetings, including the main assemblies of the great semi-annual convocations, called general conferences, at which the priesthood of every stake and every mission throughout Mormondom is represented.
The tabernacle measures two hundred and fifty feet in length, one hundred and fifty feet in width and eighty feet in height. Its huge dome-shaped roof, resting on forty-four stone buttresses, has no pillars whatever supporting it on the inside. In this structure, as in many other of their edifices, the Mormons were daring and unconventional in their architecture. The tabernacle originally was put together without a nail. Rawhide thongs and wooden pegs held beams and joists in place. From a distance, the tabernacle has the appearance of an enormous boiled egg that has been sliced lengthwise through the middle and placed flat side downward upon a set of giant's building blocks.
Strange emotions surged within me when I entered this building for the first time. It was empty. The startling interior mirrored the way of life of an entire civilization that was strange and new to me. What manner of people would have need for such a meeting place as this? It had all the dignity and majesty of any of the famous cathedrals I had seen. But somehow, it also displayed the same rugged simplicity of the poorest little pine board chapel tucked away in the sandhills of Arkansas. What traits of character motivated a million people that they seemingly could reconcile these two opposite extremes? Here was clearly reflected enormous power without ostentation and almost barren plainness, without poverty.
The renowned Mormon organ and seating for the Tabernacle choir occupy one entire end of the colossal auditorium. Tier above tier, the seats are arranged in a semicircle behind the rostrum. Right in the center of the choir space and behind it is the organ, its ornamental pipes towering above the singers like a dream forest of golden trees. The rostrum space itself is arranged differently than that of any non-Mormon place of assembly or worship.
Acoustical properties of the tabernacle have been much touted, but even so, have not been overrated. It literally is possible to hear a pin drop, from one end of the place to the other end.
If the interior of the tabernacle seems to be awesome when empty, imagine its effect upon a person when eight thousand people pack themselves into it! Eight thousand trained voices, all raised in one grand exultant song of Zion, with the mighty organ booming out its deep-throated accompaniment! Inspiring? There is no more moving thing in the world, no greater emotional power, than the spirit of a multitude of people that are unified, even for a few moments, on some such common meeting ground as a familiar hymn. It is said that there is strength in numbers. A mighty congregation in the Mormon tabernacle has demonstrated to me that there is also faith in numbers. Each person of the multitude pools his own modicum of faith with that of the others. The total is such a staggering personality-moulding fource as to be forever unforgettable.
Mormons are justly proud of their organ. Utah craftsmen built this masterpiece almost entirely by hand. It has eight thousand pipes that range in length from five-eights of an inch to thirty-two feet. Its highest notes are almost beyond the range of human ears, and its lower tones can produce a rumbling, earthquake-like vibration so intense as to be beyond human endurance for more than a short interval. All musicians who have heard it agree that its tones are as rich and mellow as those of any other instrument on earth. You probably have heard this organ many times. Music from it is broadcast in Sunday morning programs on a continent-wide, and sometimes a world-wide range through facilities of the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Assembly hall is used for regular quarterly conferences of stakes, and as a meeting place for rather large units of the church organization that happen to be located within easy traveling distance. It accomodates a surprisingly large number of people. Its interior furnishings carry out the same general plan as that of the tabernacle, but on a much smaller scale. The long pewlike seats on its main floor are placed too close together, however, and it is nearly impossible for an average-sized man to stand erect between the pews. These could advantageously be moved about three inches farther apart. Many well-located exits make it possible for Assembly hall to be emptied of a congregation in a few minutes with little or no danger of a crushing stampede.
Compared to the magnificence of other features of Temple Square, the museum is rather small and inadequate for the stupendous job of visually interpreting L.D.S. history. Another similar museum is crowded into cramped quarters at the state capitol. Many interesting artifacts are displayed in both places. However, a spacious museum comes high on the list of things badly needed by Mormondom. Such a place would be a distinct cultural asset to the nation, and viewed from a strictly commercial standpoint, would be a student-tourist attraction that would draw many new dollars into the tills of everyone doing business in Utah, whatever his religion might be. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers and the State of Utah together have projected such a cultural storehouse, but it still is only in the planning stage.
The church Information Bureau in Temple Square tackles the colossal task of explaining this sacred spot of Mormondom to the tourists, the sightseers, the students, the devout, and the curious, who daily flock to the shrine by thousands. The burden of this explanatory work has an identity in the nature of a mission, and affords many sincere Salt Lake City Saints an opportunity to serve the church in a way that would be impossible if it were necessary for them to leave their home responsibilities.
Its beautifully landscaped grounds are a perfect setting for life-sized statues of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith, both martyrs to the cause of their faith.
Active propaganda agencies of the church and genuine interest by tourists and travelers have spread all over the earth the fame of Seagull Monument, which stands in the center of a pool before Assembly hall. This shaft, topped by a golden gull, commemorates a miraculous occurence in early Utah history. At a critical time not long after the pioneers came, when they still had been unable to lay away any surplus food stores, the crops upon which they and their livestock were depending for subsistence were threatened with destruction by uncountable swarms of crickets. The settlers worked to the point of exhaustion in a vain effort to stop the plague of voracious insects bent upon stripping every fibre of their crops. They tried to plow the pests under. They diverted streams of water in an effort to drown them. They tried to burn them when they crossed patches of ground on which stood dried grass. They nearly flailed their arms out of their sockets beating back the insect hordes that, nevertheless, converged on the ripening foods. Just at the moment when it seemed that all was lost, and that the pioneers would face certain starvation, great flocks of seagulls winged in from the Salt Lake and devoured the crickets. Both the gulls and the crickets were in almost unbelievable numbers. The L.D.S. church recognized this as an act of divine intervention. The statue that memorializes the miracle is said by the Salt Lake City chamber of commerce to be the only monument in all the world that has been erected to wild birdlife.
An especially photogenic architectural pile, the Salt Lake City temple is pictured in countless pieces of Mormon literature. Scores of artists and photographers have portrayed it as it has appeared in all seasons, and their works on this subject adorn the walls of thousands of homes in widely scattered spots around the globe. Its spires streaching heavenward - Its distinctively shaped windows - Its huge symbolic doors - All set it apart and make it the unmistakable focus of hopes and aspirations of all Mormons.
The edifice was under construction for a period of forty years that ended in 1893. It was build of gray granite quarried in Little Cottonwood canyon and hauled the intervening 25 miles by varying means of transportation that began with oxcarts. A canal that later served to bring water for irrigation at first was dug for the purpose of floating down building stone for the temple.
Like all other Mormon temples, the Salt Lake City temple is reserved for sacred rites. Casual visitors may not enter it. Indeed, not all Mormons may go inside, but only those who adequately live their religion and conscientiously prepare themselves for an appearance in the house of the Lord. Temple rites are explained in another part of this book.
Atop the temple's highest spire is a statue of the Angel Moroni. It is made of hammered bronze and is covered with pure gold leaf. Nearly every Mormon, wherever he may live in the world, cherishes an ambition to go inside the Sale Lake City temple before he dies.
Visitors of all faiths are welcome in the Salt Lake tabernacle. This is one of the world's most astounding buildings. It possesses a seating capacity of eight thousand people, and is used for many types of meetings, including the main assemblies of the great semi-annual convocations, called general conferences, at which the priesthood of every stake and every mission throughout Mormondom is represented.
The tabernacle measures two hundred and fifty feet in length, one hundred and fifty feet in width and eighty feet in height. Its huge dome-shaped roof, resting on forty-four stone buttresses, has no pillars whatever supporting it on the inside. In this structure, as in many other of their edifices, the Mormons were daring and unconventional in their architecture. The tabernacle originally was put together without a nail. Rawhide thongs and wooden pegs held beams and joists in place. From a distance, the tabernacle has the appearance of an enormous boiled egg that has been sliced lengthwise through the middle and placed flat side downward upon a set of giant's building blocks.
Strange emotions surged within me when I entered this building for the first time. It was empty. The startling interior mirrored the way of life of an entire civilization that was strange and new to me. What manner of people would have need for such a meeting place as this? It had all the dignity and majesty of any of the famous cathedrals I had seen. But somehow, it also displayed the same rugged simplicity of the poorest little pine board chapel tucked away in the sandhills of Arkansas. What traits of character motivated a million people that they seemingly could reconcile these two opposite extremes? Here was clearly reflected enormous power without ostentation and almost barren plainness, without poverty.
The renowned Mormon organ and seating for the Tabernacle choir occupy one entire end of the colossal auditorium. Tier above tier, the seats are arranged in a semicircle behind the rostrum. Right in the center of the choir space and behind it is the organ, its ornamental pipes towering above the singers like a dream forest of golden trees. The rostrum space itself is arranged differently than that of any non-Mormon place of assembly or worship.
Acoustical properties of the tabernacle have been much touted, but even so, have not been overrated. It literally is possible to hear a pin drop, from one end of the place to the other end.
If the interior of the tabernacle seems to be awesome when empty, imagine its effect upon a person when eight thousand people pack themselves into it! Eight thousand trained voices, all raised in one grand exultant song of Zion, with the mighty organ booming out its deep-throated accompaniment! Inspiring? There is no more moving thing in the world, no greater emotional power, than the spirit of a multitude of people that are unified, even for a few moments, on some such common meeting ground as a familiar hymn. It is said that there is strength in numbers. A mighty congregation in the Mormon tabernacle has demonstrated to me that there is also faith in numbers. Each person of the multitude pools his own modicum of faith with that of the others. The total is such a staggering personality-moulding fource as to be forever unforgettable.
Mormons are justly proud of their organ. Utah craftsmen built this masterpiece almost entirely by hand. It has eight thousand pipes that range in length from five-eights of an inch to thirty-two feet. Its highest notes are almost beyond the range of human ears, and its lower tones can produce a rumbling, earthquake-like vibration so intense as to be beyond human endurance for more than a short interval. All musicians who have heard it agree that its tones are as rich and mellow as those of any other instrument on earth. You probably have heard this organ many times. Music from it is broadcast in Sunday morning programs on a continent-wide, and sometimes a world-wide range through facilities of the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Assembly hall is used for regular quarterly conferences of stakes, and as a meeting place for rather large units of the church organization that happen to be located within easy traveling distance. It accomodates a surprisingly large number of people. Its interior furnishings carry out the same general plan as that of the tabernacle, but on a much smaller scale. The long pewlike seats on its main floor are placed too close together, however, and it is nearly impossible for an average-sized man to stand erect between the pews. These could advantageously be moved about three inches farther apart. Many well-located exits make it possible for Assembly hall to be emptied of a congregation in a few minutes with little or no danger of a crushing stampede.
Compared to the magnificence of other features of Temple Square, the museum is rather small and inadequate for the stupendous job of visually interpreting L.D.S. history. Another similar museum is crowded into cramped quarters at the state capitol. Many interesting artifacts are displayed in both places. However, a spacious museum comes high on the list of things badly needed by Mormondom. Such a place would be a distinct cultural asset to the nation, and viewed from a strictly commercial standpoint, would be a student-tourist attraction that would draw many new dollars into the tills of everyone doing business in Utah, whatever his religion might be. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers and the State of Utah together have projected such a cultural storehouse, but it still is only in the planning stage.
The church Information Bureau in Temple Square tackles the colossal task of explaining this sacred spot of Mormondom to the tourists, the sightseers, the students, the devout, and the curious, who daily flock to the shrine by thousands. The burden of this explanatory work has an identity in the nature of a mission, and affords many sincere Salt Lake City Saints an opportunity to serve the church in a way that would be impossible if it were necessary for them to leave their home responsibilities.
5.
Mormons like to believe that Salt Lake City is located "in the tops of the mountains" in fulfillment of an ancient religious prophecy well known among their forebears before the western migration. They point out the remarkable coincidence that the old Indian name for this area, "Eutaw" has since their settlement here been discovered to literally mean, "in the tops of the mountains."
Actually, the city is situated on the edge of an extensive valley, the floor of which is about four-fifths of a mile above sea level. The long valley is bounded by high chains of mountains.
Altitude of Salt Lake City is 4354 feet. It is one of the highest cities in the United States. Only a few, notably Denver, Colorado, exceed its altitude. When I first went to Salt Lake City from nearer sea level, I experienced noticable physical readjustments because of the rarer atmosphere and chemical properties of the drinking water, after I had been there about a month. The general effect of the climate has proven delightful and invigorating, and when I am at a distance from the place, I find myself longing to return.
The comparatively thin mountain air tends to produce a remarkable clarity of vision, especially after dark. At night in summertime the sky becomes a great expanse of velvety violet and seems to take on a third dimension. And never were stars more brilliant! They look like enormous iridescent gems on a jeweler's cloth. Highways approaching the city from the mountain side afford several vantage points from which the motorist at night can see the brightly lighted city, a veritable fantastic fairyland, lying below him on the plain.
The valley of the Great Salt Lake was occupied by Lake Bonneville in a prehistoric period thousands of years ago. Terraces left by receding waters of Bonneville are prominent at ascending levels on the sides of mountains that formed the ancient shore. Scientists say that the lake, at its best, was 350 miles long, 145 miles wide, and at its deepest point was 1050 feet.
The Salt Lake near the city is a geographical wonder. Seven times as salty as the ocean, its waters will float the human body. It is the largest inland body of water in the west, and the biggest body of water at its altitude in the world.
The year is sharply divided into four distinct seasons in Salt Lake City. The weather generally is mild. There are but few hot days and tropical clothing is not a standard item in wardrobes of the residents. Spring arrives rather late, in comparison to many other cities of the same latitude, but at lower altitudes. The period of typical summer weather is short. Autumn is long and beautiful, beginning in August and lasting until November. Several deep snows each year fall upon the city itself, beginning in mid-December, and to be expected as late as the first of March. There are only short invervals of very cold weather, however, and snows frequently melt away a week or two after they fall.
A very disagreeable feature of winter time is the heavy smoke from soft coal that, due to peculiar atmospheric conditions, hangs over that part of the city which is on the level plain. Residential property on the mountain bench lands commands premium prices because it is "above the smoke line." Most of the city's homes and places of business are heated with furnaces that burn Utah-mined coal. The colder the day, the heavier is the ominous cloud that challenges the life of this beautiful city. If the cloud is not conquered, the city is doomed.
Fortunately, the means of abating the smoke are at hand, but their adequate use will require much more aggressive action on the part of civic leaders and the municipal government than these have heretofore shown. Some halfway measures toward smoke abatement have been taken, but these are only a drop in the bucket, compared to what is needed. When railroads operating within the city were required to control the smoke of their switch engines in the spring of 1946, the soft coal operators of eastern Utah appeared conspicuous in their opposition. They feared their mines would suffer loss of business. I was on the copy desk of a Salt Lake City daily newspaper at that time, and it fell my lot to edit and write the headlines for news reports of many luncheon club speeches that were not only positively asinine, but in violent opposition to the welfare of the people.
So real is the threat from smoke damage that unmistakeable signs of property deterioration, and accompanying evidences of the beginning of a huge slum area are appearing in a sizable chunk of valuable real estate that stretches for twelve blocks east of Main street (and the temple), a greater distance west of the temple, and about fifteen blocks southward. If the smoke is not wholly abated, it is reasonable to expect that most property in this given area (the governor's mansion is included) will decline from 25% to 75% of its uninflated ground value, without regard to normal building depreciation, during the next decade. For this statement I am not depending upon roseate dreams fo any chamber of commerce or realty committee, but using my own rather extensive observations on the spot. I've spent three winters in Salt Lake City, and parts of two others there. In my campaign for the state legislature in 1946, I pushed four thousand doorbells in the center of the smoke area and personally visited every doorway in a tightly populated district there. It is evident that if the smoke doesn't go, the city will. It's a terrible thought and a cruel thing to voice, but I can see no logical reason why Zion is likely to be exempt from the inexorable processes of economic deterioration if it continues to ignore the warning signs that have preceded the ruin of many other industrialized areas.
Many people have devoted years of work in a labor of love to beautify Salt Lake City. Evidences of their zeal abound.
Main shade trees, all of which have been planted by human hands are: Chinese or Siberian elm, horse chestnut, black locust, honey locust, poplar, and Russian olive. There are few groves of pintes and many species of ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and on private lands.
The poplar and similar cottonwood and boxelder trees were among the first to be grown. They were introduced by pioneers because their rapi growth made them ideal windbreaks. The elms have been grown from seed imported in the early part of this century, and have spread rapidly. Newest among the more widely used tree species is the Russian olive. It does not grow to very great proportions, but its smooth reddish-brown bark and contrasting narrow silvery leaves are a distinct beauty contribution. It produces a multitude of tiny nuts that provide food for a population of eastern squirrels that is increasing in the city, especially near the campus of the University of Utah. A mountain-adapted black walnut tree also is becoming popular, mainly through the efforts of the School of Forestry of the Utah State Agricultural College at Logan, Utah.
Long flowering spikes of the blossoming chestnuts, honey-laden clusters of lucust flowers and hundreds of yards filled with old-fashioned sweet-scented lilacs, green lawns, and the lacy shade of fast-growing elms compose the city's early summer floral picture. A municipal rose garden and multi-colored Dutch tulips of the temple grounds and other downtown church properties are equally well known. Lotlines bordered with tall old poplars mark locations of homes of earlier residents.
The state capitol, patterned after that of the nation's capitol, rises above the city on the nose of an escarpment of the northern mountains. It can be seen from all parts of the city, and from State street, it is framed in a view through Eagle Gate.
Omnipresence of mountains has a far-reaching emotional effect upon resident and visitor alike. Towering ribs of the Wasatch range present an ever-changing panorama of beauty that is unsurpassed. Their lines, form and color undergo so many mutations that they never appear the same for two days in succession. Not even identical for two hours on end, for that matter. Snows lie on some of the peaks nearly all year long. Others, nearby, lose their snow during summer and their verdure, undergoing regular seasonal changes, presents an entrancing study in form and color: white snows of winter against the backdrop of a sky that shades from one tone of blue to another with the waxing and waning of twilight, sunshine and darkness; green grass and shrubbery of spring and early summer, broken here and there by outcropping ledges of stone in varied tones of rust, ochre, red, brown, and gray; the golden straw color of vast undulations of dried June grass in midsummer, and occasional blotches of charred areas where some of the grass has burned over. The flaming colors of frost-touched leaves of scrub-oak and maples that fill draws and are dotted at irregular intervals over the mountainsides are a familiar view in early autumn. Frosts touch the higher reaches several weeks before they do the valley floor. Principal wild plants found growing in valleys and on rich benches of the mountains are yellow clover and wild sunflowers. The latter often reach a height of four or five feet. They cover spots many acres in extent, wherever there is sufficient moisture to support their growth. They hold their coloring until late fall, beginning with brightly contrasting yellow flowers and broad green leaves in midsummer and gradually moving through many shades of yellow to brown as the leaves wither and flowers predominate. The many hours that I spent riding my black gelding in these eastern marches of the city form a highlight in my life.
Actually, the city is situated on the edge of an extensive valley, the floor of which is about four-fifths of a mile above sea level. The long valley is bounded by high chains of mountains.
Altitude of Salt Lake City is 4354 feet. It is one of the highest cities in the United States. Only a few, notably Denver, Colorado, exceed its altitude. When I first went to Salt Lake City from nearer sea level, I experienced noticable physical readjustments because of the rarer atmosphere and chemical properties of the drinking water, after I had been there about a month. The general effect of the climate has proven delightful and invigorating, and when I am at a distance from the place, I find myself longing to return.
The comparatively thin mountain air tends to produce a remarkable clarity of vision, especially after dark. At night in summertime the sky becomes a great expanse of velvety violet and seems to take on a third dimension. And never were stars more brilliant! They look like enormous iridescent gems on a jeweler's cloth. Highways approaching the city from the mountain side afford several vantage points from which the motorist at night can see the brightly lighted city, a veritable fantastic fairyland, lying below him on the plain.
The valley of the Great Salt Lake was occupied by Lake Bonneville in a prehistoric period thousands of years ago. Terraces left by receding waters of Bonneville are prominent at ascending levels on the sides of mountains that formed the ancient shore. Scientists say that the lake, at its best, was 350 miles long, 145 miles wide, and at its deepest point was 1050 feet.
The Salt Lake near the city is a geographical wonder. Seven times as salty as the ocean, its waters will float the human body. It is the largest inland body of water in the west, and the biggest body of water at its altitude in the world.
The year is sharply divided into four distinct seasons in Salt Lake City. The weather generally is mild. There are but few hot days and tropical clothing is not a standard item in wardrobes of the residents. Spring arrives rather late, in comparison to many other cities of the same latitude, but at lower altitudes. The period of typical summer weather is short. Autumn is long and beautiful, beginning in August and lasting until November. Several deep snows each year fall upon the city itself, beginning in mid-December, and to be expected as late as the first of March. There are only short invervals of very cold weather, however, and snows frequently melt away a week or two after they fall.
A very disagreeable feature of winter time is the heavy smoke from soft coal that, due to peculiar atmospheric conditions, hangs over that part of the city which is on the level plain. Residential property on the mountain bench lands commands premium prices because it is "above the smoke line." Most of the city's homes and places of business are heated with furnaces that burn Utah-mined coal. The colder the day, the heavier is the ominous cloud that challenges the life of this beautiful city. If the cloud is not conquered, the city is doomed.
Fortunately, the means of abating the smoke are at hand, but their adequate use will require much more aggressive action on the part of civic leaders and the municipal government than these have heretofore shown. Some halfway measures toward smoke abatement have been taken, but these are only a drop in the bucket, compared to what is needed. When railroads operating within the city were required to control the smoke of their switch engines in the spring of 1946, the soft coal operators of eastern Utah appeared conspicuous in their opposition. They feared their mines would suffer loss of business. I was on the copy desk of a Salt Lake City daily newspaper at that time, and it fell my lot to edit and write the headlines for news reports of many luncheon club speeches that were not only positively asinine, but in violent opposition to the welfare of the people.
So real is the threat from smoke damage that unmistakeable signs of property deterioration, and accompanying evidences of the beginning of a huge slum area are appearing in a sizable chunk of valuable real estate that stretches for twelve blocks east of Main street (and the temple), a greater distance west of the temple, and about fifteen blocks southward. If the smoke is not wholly abated, it is reasonable to expect that most property in this given area (the governor's mansion is included) will decline from 25% to 75% of its uninflated ground value, without regard to normal building depreciation, during the next decade. For this statement I am not depending upon roseate dreams fo any chamber of commerce or realty committee, but using my own rather extensive observations on the spot. I've spent three winters in Salt Lake City, and parts of two others there. In my campaign for the state legislature in 1946, I pushed four thousand doorbells in the center of the smoke area and personally visited every doorway in a tightly populated district there. It is evident that if the smoke doesn't go, the city will. It's a terrible thought and a cruel thing to voice, but I can see no logical reason why Zion is likely to be exempt from the inexorable processes of economic deterioration if it continues to ignore the warning signs that have preceded the ruin of many other industrialized areas.
Many people have devoted years of work in a labor of love to beautify Salt Lake City. Evidences of their zeal abound.
Main shade trees, all of which have been planted by human hands are: Chinese or Siberian elm, horse chestnut, black locust, honey locust, poplar, and Russian olive. There are few groves of pintes and many species of ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and on private lands.
The poplar and similar cottonwood and boxelder trees were among the first to be grown. They were introduced by pioneers because their rapi growth made them ideal windbreaks. The elms have been grown from seed imported in the early part of this century, and have spread rapidly. Newest among the more widely used tree species is the Russian olive. It does not grow to very great proportions, but its smooth reddish-brown bark and contrasting narrow silvery leaves are a distinct beauty contribution. It produces a multitude of tiny nuts that provide food for a population of eastern squirrels that is increasing in the city, especially near the campus of the University of Utah. A mountain-adapted black walnut tree also is becoming popular, mainly through the efforts of the School of Forestry of the Utah State Agricultural College at Logan, Utah.
Long flowering spikes of the blossoming chestnuts, honey-laden clusters of lucust flowers and hundreds of yards filled with old-fashioned sweet-scented lilacs, green lawns, and the lacy shade of fast-growing elms compose the city's early summer floral picture. A municipal rose garden and multi-colored Dutch tulips of the temple grounds and other downtown church properties are equally well known. Lotlines bordered with tall old poplars mark locations of homes of earlier residents.
The state capitol, patterned after that of the nation's capitol, rises above the city on the nose of an escarpment of the northern mountains. It can be seen from all parts of the city, and from State street, it is framed in a view through Eagle Gate.
Omnipresence of mountains has a far-reaching emotional effect upon resident and visitor alike. Towering ribs of the Wasatch range present an ever-changing panorama of beauty that is unsurpassed. Their lines, form and color undergo so many mutations that they never appear the same for two days in succession. Not even identical for two hours on end, for that matter. Snows lie on some of the peaks nearly all year long. Others, nearby, lose their snow during summer and their verdure, undergoing regular seasonal changes, presents an entrancing study in form and color: white snows of winter against the backdrop of a sky that shades from one tone of blue to another with the waxing and waning of twilight, sunshine and darkness; green grass and shrubbery of spring and early summer, broken here and there by outcropping ledges of stone in varied tones of rust, ochre, red, brown, and gray; the golden straw color of vast undulations of dried June grass in midsummer, and occasional blotches of charred areas where some of the grass has burned over. The flaming colors of frost-touched leaves of scrub-oak and maples that fill draws and are dotted at irregular intervals over the mountainsides are a familiar view in early autumn. Frosts touch the higher reaches several weeks before they do the valley floor. Principal wild plants found growing in valleys and on rich benches of the mountains are yellow clover and wild sunflowers. The latter often reach a height of four or five feet. They cover spots many acres in extent, wherever there is sufficient moisture to support their growth. They hold their coloring until late fall, beginning with brightly contrasting yellow flowers and broad green leaves in midsummer and gradually moving through many shades of yellow to brown as the leaves wither and flowers predominate. The many hours that I spent riding my black gelding in these eastern marches of the city form a highlight in my life.
6.
Salt Lake citizens, realizing the importance of their location as a center of western tourist traffic, have quite thoroughly developed their public recreational facilities, and these now rank with the world's best.
Golfers find pleasure in five excellent courses. Two of them, the Fort Douglas Golf club and the Salt Lake Country club, are private organizations. The others, Bonneville, Forest Dale and Nibley Park, are part of an extensive public recreation system.
The Ft. Douglas club is located on a military reservation adjoining the city. Its membership is composed of Army officers stationed at the fort, and civilians of the city. There's a long waiting list for the limited number of billets.
Salt Lake Country club is beautifully located at the mouth of Parley's canyon. It has eighteen holes.
The Bonneville course, at Ninth South and Twenty-third East, is open to the public from dawn to dusk. The towering Wasatch mountains form for it a backdrop of picturesque grandeur. Likewise open all day is the Nibley Park nine-hole course, which is noted for its water hazard. The Forest Dale golf layout, at 2375 South Ninth East, offers nine holes of interesting playing.
The city has twenty-one parks, of which Liberty park is the largest. Here are found playgrounds, picnic facilities, boating, swimming, amusement devices, tennis courts, band concerts, flower gardens and a big aviary with many varieties of common and exotic birds. The park system is augmented by many sets of picnic equipment that have been constructed in valleys and canyons nearby by the United State Forestry Service. However, Hogle Gardens zoo is a flop, and does poor credit to such a cultural center.
Tennis enthusiasts have only a short distance to go in any direction to find good courts. In addition to the many courts maintained by the city recreation department, there usually are provisions made for tennis playing at the community centers of L.D.S. wards.
The Mormon church wards and public school gymnasiums together provide housing and sponsorship for a greater amount of basketball activity each winter than can be found anywhere else in the world in an area of comparable size. This is more fully explained in the chapter on Young People.
Swimming, indoors and outdoors, is a year round sport here. Lagoon resort, seventeen miles out, offers carnival attractions, picnic grounds and fresh water swimming from May thirtieth until Labor Day. Thousands patronize it daily. Saltair beach, which observes the same season, has a huge dance pavilion, carnival devices and bathing in the Great Salt Lake. The water is about 23 percent salt, with the result that the "swimmer" floats like a cork on its surface.
Natural hot springs add a novel feature to swimming. There are both indoor and outdoor hot pools. The water, which flows from volcanic-heated springs, has a pungent odor and contains in solution such chemicals as soda, sulphur, magnesia, and salt. At the Wasatch Springs plunge, Ninth North and Second West, there is an open-air pool of steaming water in which hundreds of people swim every day, including even the coldest of winter.
In cooperation and friendly rivalry with Ogden, Salt Lake City has taken the lead in promoting skiing as an American sport. Brighton and Alta winter sports resorts have become famous. Several European ski experts were imported before World War II, and around this nucleus has been built a corps of professional instructors and an ever-expanding army of enthusiastic amateur followers of the sport. The astounding beauty of snow-covered Utah mountains is being unlocked to all comers.
Salt Lake City is the center of a marvelous fishing and hunting country, where many varieties of game abound. There are no fish in the Great Salt Lake, but scores of freshwater lakes and streams are well stocked with several varieties of trout and other gamefish, including the blue channel catfish. A wilderness alpine area begins right at the city's doorstep and extends many miles northeastward. While exploring Red Butte mountain on the Ft. Douglas reservation, I have observed herds of deer browsing unconcernedly within sight of the city. Game birds include valley quail and doves, as well as a great number of Chinese pheasants.
Not far from Salt Lake City are the famous Bonneville salt flats, where Ab Jenkins, later to become mayor of the city, pioneered modern automobile speed runs with his "Mormon Meteor." John Cobb in 1939 established the world's land speed record of 368.9 miles per hour at this speedway.
It might be pointed out here, however, that the main Sunday recreation of devout Mormons is church attendance. While the L.D.S. church consistently has developed all wholesome forms of recreation, it has held that these things ought to be handled during week days, and that Sunday is to be reserved for worship, rest, and contemplation of the more serious aspects of philosophy and religion.
Golfers find pleasure in five excellent courses. Two of them, the Fort Douglas Golf club and the Salt Lake Country club, are private organizations. The others, Bonneville, Forest Dale and Nibley Park, are part of an extensive public recreation system.
The Ft. Douglas club is located on a military reservation adjoining the city. Its membership is composed of Army officers stationed at the fort, and civilians of the city. There's a long waiting list for the limited number of billets.
Salt Lake Country club is beautifully located at the mouth of Parley's canyon. It has eighteen holes.
The Bonneville course, at Ninth South and Twenty-third East, is open to the public from dawn to dusk. The towering Wasatch mountains form for it a backdrop of picturesque grandeur. Likewise open all day is the Nibley Park nine-hole course, which is noted for its water hazard. The Forest Dale golf layout, at 2375 South Ninth East, offers nine holes of interesting playing.
The city has twenty-one parks, of which Liberty park is the largest. Here are found playgrounds, picnic facilities, boating, swimming, amusement devices, tennis courts, band concerts, flower gardens and a big aviary with many varieties of common and exotic birds. The park system is augmented by many sets of picnic equipment that have been constructed in valleys and canyons nearby by the United State Forestry Service. However, Hogle Gardens zoo is a flop, and does poor credit to such a cultural center.
Tennis enthusiasts have only a short distance to go in any direction to find good courts. In addition to the many courts maintained by the city recreation department, there usually are provisions made for tennis playing at the community centers of L.D.S. wards.
The Mormon church wards and public school gymnasiums together provide housing and sponsorship for a greater amount of basketball activity each winter than can be found anywhere else in the world in an area of comparable size. This is more fully explained in the chapter on Young People.
Swimming, indoors and outdoors, is a year round sport here. Lagoon resort, seventeen miles out, offers carnival attractions, picnic grounds and fresh water swimming from May thirtieth until Labor Day. Thousands patronize it daily. Saltair beach, which observes the same season, has a huge dance pavilion, carnival devices and bathing in the Great Salt Lake. The water is about 23 percent salt, with the result that the "swimmer" floats like a cork on its surface.
Natural hot springs add a novel feature to swimming. There are both indoor and outdoor hot pools. The water, which flows from volcanic-heated springs, has a pungent odor and contains in solution such chemicals as soda, sulphur, magnesia, and salt. At the Wasatch Springs plunge, Ninth North and Second West, there is an open-air pool of steaming water in which hundreds of people swim every day, including even the coldest of winter.
In cooperation and friendly rivalry with Ogden, Salt Lake City has taken the lead in promoting skiing as an American sport. Brighton and Alta winter sports resorts have become famous. Several European ski experts were imported before World War II, and around this nucleus has been built a corps of professional instructors and an ever-expanding army of enthusiastic amateur followers of the sport. The astounding beauty of snow-covered Utah mountains is being unlocked to all comers.
Salt Lake City is the center of a marvelous fishing and hunting country, where many varieties of game abound. There are no fish in the Great Salt Lake, but scores of freshwater lakes and streams are well stocked with several varieties of trout and other gamefish, including the blue channel catfish. A wilderness alpine area begins right at the city's doorstep and extends many miles northeastward. While exploring Red Butte mountain on the Ft. Douglas reservation, I have observed herds of deer browsing unconcernedly within sight of the city. Game birds include valley quail and doves, as well as a great number of Chinese pheasants.
Not far from Salt Lake City are the famous Bonneville salt flats, where Ab Jenkins, later to become mayor of the city, pioneered modern automobile speed runs with his "Mormon Meteor." John Cobb in 1939 established the world's land speed record of 368.9 miles per hour at this speedway.
It might be pointed out here, however, that the main Sunday recreation of devout Mormons is church attendance. While the L.D.S. church consistently has developed all wholesome forms of recreation, it has held that these things ought to be handled during week days, and that Sunday is to be reserved for worship, rest, and contemplation of the more serious aspects of philosophy and religion.
7.
It surprises many to learn that Mormons do not comprise a majority of the people of Salt Lake City. Only about forty percent of the residents of the metropolis at this time are members of the L.D.S. church. This is a rough figure, based upon a somewhat nebulous estimate of the total of the present population. The total unofficially is placed at about 200,000. The population is rapidly growing, and only a most acute postwar housing shortage has so far prevented an astronomical jump in the figure. Fairly accurate figures of the numbers of active Mormons, of course, are always available from records of stake and ward clerks.
Four main factors seem at present to contribute most toward the city's rapid expansion. These are: industrial growth of the entire central Utah area with the establishment of steel mills near Provo; a great number of military personnel which cleared through the city during World War II liked the place so well they decided to make their home there; as a result of war savings, many Mormons in other places are able to realize their lifetime ambition of moving to Zion; and the ability of the University of Utah to assimilate a huge new student body, which G. I. students have swelled from a prewar normal of about 4,000 to its present size of about 9,000.
Nearly all churches and all faiths in America are represented in the capital of Mormondom. There are congregations of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Orthodox Greeks, Assemblies of God, Nazarene, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and others.
When the first non-Mormons settled in the valley, they came into rather violent conflict with the earlier Mormon majority members who, quite naturally, had come to look upon the area as being exclusively their own. These clashes were religious, cultural, economic, and even physical. Through the years, however, the opposing forces began to acquire an accomodation and a respect for each other, and settled down to a community life of amity and mutual toleration, more or less. One of the more potent irritants between Mormons and non-Mormons in Salt Lake City has been the colossal ignorance of editors of many of the nation's leading magazines and journals in reporting the Mormon culture. Even the most rabid anti-Mormons who actually have resided in the west beside and with these people often have felt that eastern publications have almost invariably missed the mark in their attempted portrayals of various facets of this interesting way of life. This tendency, unfortunately, persists even today. Reporters and writers have been unable to drop their own preconceived ideas of culture, religion and business, or to approach a study of the Mormons in an unbiased frame of mind. During World War II a great national weekly ran an article, describing Salt Lake City, which was exceedingly shallow, frivolous and superficial.
The influx of population brought about by World War II has given rise to a new set of conflicts in Salt Lake City. Oldtimers, recalling the turbulent history of earlier strife, and realizing that sound progress can only come through community harmony, have sought to avoid all possible breaches. The current causes for clashes, however, are quite different from most of those encountered before. Thousands of Mormon young men and young women, for the first time in L.D.S. existence, have married outside the faith during the past six years. The personal and family problems of these young people who are trying to build homes together by bridging such a wide philosophical gap in their personalities are the root of most social conflict in Salt Lake City today. Some are unable to make the transition, and this has resulted in a steady climb in the divorce rate. At first, loyal Mormons were prone to attribute the unprecedented rise in divorces to the fact that they were being obtained by non-Mormon "transients," or "temporary residents." But this was only whistling in the dark. An examination of the court records shows that Mormons are getting their proportionate share of the divorces.
The impact of the new population's ideas of social organization upon traditional L.D.S. patriarchal-democracy is heavy. The newcomers have a tendency to break their society down into centuries-old castes and classes. As a consequence, the "brother" and "sister" democracy among the Mormons is receiving a severe jolt. By-and-large, the church is not meeting the challenge to assimilate these new population elements in its capital city as well as it is in the missions afield. After his first thrill at being in Temple Square has somewhat subsided, the Mormon convert who comes to Zion often is disappointed.
Many racial and national groups are represented in Salt Lake City. The first heavy migration came from the eastern part of the United States and from England. The next big group originated in the Scandinavian countries. Hansen, Jensen, Christiansen, are thoroughly common family names. There is a sizable contingent from Holland, where Mormon missionaries have been active for two generations. Germany is well represented. There are L.D.S. wards of Mexicans and Japanese. Near the railroad stations, a recognizable Negro community has come into existence. In the very center of the city, several alleys, by-ways and short streets have become a small Chinatown. One of the colonies that is expanding most rapidly is that of the Greeks. First drawn west by opportunities for labor in the mines, these gradually have settled into an urban life more natural to them, and have become well-entrenched in the state's biggest city. They are not being absorbed into Mormonism at all, but have their own powerful community, complete with Hellenic church, social structure and ample means and incentive to maintain and propagate their own mores and customs. Curiously, most Salt Lake City residents who are natives of the older southern states are not Mormons. The L.D.S. church seems to have been able to make but little headway in that part of the country south of the Mason and Dixon line and west of the Alleghenies. There are, indeed, few Mormon converts from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee.
Four main factors seem at present to contribute most toward the city's rapid expansion. These are: industrial growth of the entire central Utah area with the establishment of steel mills near Provo; a great number of military personnel which cleared through the city during World War II liked the place so well they decided to make their home there; as a result of war savings, many Mormons in other places are able to realize their lifetime ambition of moving to Zion; and the ability of the University of Utah to assimilate a huge new student body, which G. I. students have swelled from a prewar normal of about 4,000 to its present size of about 9,000.
Nearly all churches and all faiths in America are represented in the capital of Mormondom. There are congregations of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Orthodox Greeks, Assemblies of God, Nazarene, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and others.
When the first non-Mormons settled in the valley, they came into rather violent conflict with the earlier Mormon majority members who, quite naturally, had come to look upon the area as being exclusively their own. These clashes were religious, cultural, economic, and even physical. Through the years, however, the opposing forces began to acquire an accomodation and a respect for each other, and settled down to a community life of amity and mutual toleration, more or less. One of the more potent irritants between Mormons and non-Mormons in Salt Lake City has been the colossal ignorance of editors of many of the nation's leading magazines and journals in reporting the Mormon culture. Even the most rabid anti-Mormons who actually have resided in the west beside and with these people often have felt that eastern publications have almost invariably missed the mark in their attempted portrayals of various facets of this interesting way of life. This tendency, unfortunately, persists even today. Reporters and writers have been unable to drop their own preconceived ideas of culture, religion and business, or to approach a study of the Mormons in an unbiased frame of mind. During World War II a great national weekly ran an article, describing Salt Lake City, which was exceedingly shallow, frivolous and superficial.
The influx of population brought about by World War II has given rise to a new set of conflicts in Salt Lake City. Oldtimers, recalling the turbulent history of earlier strife, and realizing that sound progress can only come through community harmony, have sought to avoid all possible breaches. The current causes for clashes, however, are quite different from most of those encountered before. Thousands of Mormon young men and young women, for the first time in L.D.S. existence, have married outside the faith during the past six years. The personal and family problems of these young people who are trying to build homes together by bridging such a wide philosophical gap in their personalities are the root of most social conflict in Salt Lake City today. Some are unable to make the transition, and this has resulted in a steady climb in the divorce rate. At first, loyal Mormons were prone to attribute the unprecedented rise in divorces to the fact that they were being obtained by non-Mormon "transients," or "temporary residents." But this was only whistling in the dark. An examination of the court records shows that Mormons are getting their proportionate share of the divorces.
The impact of the new population's ideas of social organization upon traditional L.D.S. patriarchal-democracy is heavy. The newcomers have a tendency to break their society down into centuries-old castes and classes. As a consequence, the "brother" and "sister" democracy among the Mormons is receiving a severe jolt. By-and-large, the church is not meeting the challenge to assimilate these new population elements in its capital city as well as it is in the missions afield. After his first thrill at being in Temple Square has somewhat subsided, the Mormon convert who comes to Zion often is disappointed.
Many racial and national groups are represented in Salt Lake City. The first heavy migration came from the eastern part of the United States and from England. The next big group originated in the Scandinavian countries. Hansen, Jensen, Christiansen, are thoroughly common family names. There is a sizable contingent from Holland, where Mormon missionaries have been active for two generations. Germany is well represented. There are L.D.S. wards of Mexicans and Japanese. Near the railroad stations, a recognizable Negro community has come into existence. In the very center of the city, several alleys, by-ways and short streets have become a small Chinatown. One of the colonies that is expanding most rapidly is that of the Greeks. First drawn west by opportunities for labor in the mines, these gradually have settled into an urban life more natural to them, and have become well-entrenched in the state's biggest city. They are not being absorbed into Mormonism at all, but have their own powerful community, complete with Hellenic church, social structure and ample means and incentive to maintain and propagate their own mores and customs. Curiously, most Salt Lake City residents who are natives of the older southern states are not Mormons. The L.D.S. church seems to have been able to make but little headway in that part of the country south of the Mason and Dixon line and west of the Alleghenies. There are, indeed, few Mormon converts from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee.
8.
At risk of sounding like an overenthusiastic chamber of commerce secretary, I'll report another outstanding feature of Salt Lake City. Its economic life appears to have as secure and stable a foundation as that of any other urban area of comparable size in the world.
Beginning upon the sound and well-diversified agrarian and industrial base envisioned and put into effect by the genius of Brigham Young, the city's economic existence has steadily expanded until today.
The capital of Mormondom got off to a flying start as a commercial and industrial center, even in its earliest pioneer days. Brigham placed emphasis upon the firm rooting of this brand new civilization in the soil. He encouraged the development of extensive irrigation systems that unlocked fertility of the valleys for the production of the necessities of life. The Mormons, thus, were the first Anglo-Saxon people ever to make use of the science of irrigation. Brigham refused to exploit minerals of the mountains beyond immediate needs of the growing community, and even when the gold rush fever of 1849 hit the country, he successfully resisted the get-rich-quick urge and determinedly kept his Saints at the task of steady progress.
Industry grew side-by-side with agriculture, on a well-rounded and self-sufficient basis. Located in the midst of a desert, cut off from the rest of civilization by thousands of miles of terrain difficult to traverse in the days before automobile highways and railroads, these people had only an oxcart freight system to bring in necessities from factories of the world, and so were early thrown upon their own resources.
Salt Lake City, therefore, grew into one of the first industrial cities of the nation, both in point of time and in completeness. Mormons set up their own spinning and weaving mills, sugar refineries, knitting and other clothing establishments, leather goods factories and wagon and machine works. As in every other phase of the life of the Saints, Brother Brigham was the guiding spirit in this industrialization. He carefully planned the economy of the growing civilization. Converts were sought among people who were skilled in crafts which could contribute to the expansion of Mormondom's factories, and who could strengthen the industrial life of the empire that began to spread out around the capital city.
Salt Lake City's commercial leadership of early Mormondom led to the development of an extensive system of trade. The church itself provided the organization of capital that was the backbone of this system. Part of this grand plan was Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of which the main retail store was to become famous as the world's first modern department store. Z. C. M. I., as it is familiarly known, soon has manufacturing enterprises or wholesale trade connections in every settlement in the Mormon country, and until this day plays a prominent commercial role. It is a thing peculiarly significant in discussing Mormonism, to note that the last two presidents of the church, its spiritual leaders, its highest-placed priests, and successive holders of all the powers and keys of prophecy on earth, began their careers as salesmen for Z. C. M. I., traveling throughout Mormondom, taking orders for groceries, supplies, manufactured articles listed in that great institution's catalogs. These two were the late Heber J. Grant and the incumbent president, George Albert Smith.
With the coming of transcontinental rail service through Utah, non-Mormon merchants and other entrepeneurs began to penetrate the trade area in large numbers. They rapidly built up strong commercial connections with business houses in the rest of the country and materially broadened the economic base established by the Mormons.
Salt Lake City very early became a natural center of light industry that grew uop for the processing of raw materials from farm and mine. As an example, there today flourishes a big candy manufacturing business that resulted from a happy combination of a plentiful supply of sugar from the valley's sugar beet refineries, a large body of intelligent labor from a fecundant rural population, and a readily accessible trade outlet in the mountain empire. This candy business is typical of the manner in which Salt Lake City's system of economy is organized. The sugar beets are grown on surrounding farms, processed into sugar in nearby refineries, manufactured right within the city and wholesaled by an aggressive sales force for nearly a thousand miles in each direction, invading Denver on the east, Spokane to the north, San Francisco on the west and Los Angeles to the south.
Agricultural land occupies only 5.5 percent of the area of Utah. Most of this soil is very fertile, however. The arable land is fairly continuous in the great valleys, and Salt Lake city is the natural center. Among the more noted farm products that clear through this center are celery, tomatoes, beans, onions, eggs, turkeys, cherries, peaches, potatoes, apples, pears and livestock products. A big canning industry flourishes. Alfalfa, barley, wheat, oats and rye of the Great Salt Lake valley farms and extensive grazing areas in the hills support a thriving cattle and sheep business that has its axis in Salt Lake City. The city has an active wool and livestock market, with natural sidelines of packing, hides, furs, leather findings, etc. An interesting sidelight of this business is the shipping of deer hides. During the hunting season each fall, deer are so plentiful that their hides actually become a commercial factor, and several carloads of them are either shipped out or processed into fine leather.
Since the advent of modern auto touring, Salt Lake City has enjoyed a remarkably heavy tourist traffic that has poured much wealth into the area. Construction of hotels and motels has not been able to keep pace with the demands placed upon these facilities, especially in the summer and fall. Here, again, the residents of Mormondom are demonstrating their far-sightedness by developing skiing and other winter sports to give the place a year 'round attraction for tourist dollars.
The birth of heavy industry in Utah with the establishment of Geneva steel plant near Provo as a World War II production measure has introduced a powerful new factor into the economic life of Salt Lake City. From its beginning, the mining industry of Utah was largely in non-Mormon ownership and operation and was manned by non-Mormon laborers. Salt Lake City is undergoing a metamorphosis in adjusting itself to the demands of steel and allied heavy industry. This spacious capital of Mormondom has been [sic] only the beginning of its grown. It takes no wild-eyed visionary to predict that Salt Lake City will expand to a population of at least a half a million within the next decade. It takes no clairvoyant, either, to predict that most of this population will be non-Mormon.
Heavy industry brings to Mormondom a glorious opportunity for growth and expansion. On the other hand, the influx of such a vast new population brings a challenge to the very existence of this culture. Basically, the organization of the L.D.S. church appears to have an ability to withstand almost any kind of shock. However, the present manner in which policies are directed does not make it clear that the Mormon church can fully meet the challenge of accomodation and assimilation being violently thrust upon it by a virile new population that feels itself under no obligation to recognize the prophetic powers of the president of the church or members of the council of twelve apostles.
The manner in which this challenge is met will be of vital interest to all of America. If, in order to better comprehend and absorb these incoming people, the church should bring into its highest councils a group of converts as powerful and eloquent as those of earlier days, like Brigham Young and Parley Pratt, then, indeed, Mormonism will experience such a reawakening and rebirth that it could become the world force that its founder and first prophet dreamed for it. The organizational machinery for such a spiritual expansion exists. To make the most of it, however, the church will have to conquer an ingrowing tendency toward stodginess that, perhaps, can be compared somewhat to the lethargic condition of the ranks of commissioned officers that existed just before the avalanche of the second World War hit the army.
Next: Industrial Adaptation
Beginning upon the sound and well-diversified agrarian and industrial base envisioned and put into effect by the genius of Brigham Young, the city's economic existence has steadily expanded until today.
The capital of Mormondom got off to a flying start as a commercial and industrial center, even in its earliest pioneer days. Brigham placed emphasis upon the firm rooting of this brand new civilization in the soil. He encouraged the development of extensive irrigation systems that unlocked fertility of the valleys for the production of the necessities of life. The Mormons, thus, were the first Anglo-Saxon people ever to make use of the science of irrigation. Brigham refused to exploit minerals of the mountains beyond immediate needs of the growing community, and even when the gold rush fever of 1849 hit the country, he successfully resisted the get-rich-quick urge and determinedly kept his Saints at the task of steady progress.
Industry grew side-by-side with agriculture, on a well-rounded and self-sufficient basis. Located in the midst of a desert, cut off from the rest of civilization by thousands of miles of terrain difficult to traverse in the days before automobile highways and railroads, these people had only an oxcart freight system to bring in necessities from factories of the world, and so were early thrown upon their own resources.
Salt Lake City, therefore, grew into one of the first industrial cities of the nation, both in point of time and in completeness. Mormons set up their own spinning and weaving mills, sugar refineries, knitting and other clothing establishments, leather goods factories and wagon and machine works. As in every other phase of the life of the Saints, Brother Brigham was the guiding spirit in this industrialization. He carefully planned the economy of the growing civilization. Converts were sought among people who were skilled in crafts which could contribute to the expansion of Mormondom's factories, and who could strengthen the industrial life of the empire that began to spread out around the capital city.
Salt Lake City's commercial leadership of early Mormondom led to the development of an extensive system of trade. The church itself provided the organization of capital that was the backbone of this system. Part of this grand plan was Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of which the main retail store was to become famous as the world's first modern department store. Z. C. M. I., as it is familiarly known, soon has manufacturing enterprises or wholesale trade connections in every settlement in the Mormon country, and until this day plays a prominent commercial role. It is a thing peculiarly significant in discussing Mormonism, to note that the last two presidents of the church, its spiritual leaders, its highest-placed priests, and successive holders of all the powers and keys of prophecy on earth, began their careers as salesmen for Z. C. M. I., traveling throughout Mormondom, taking orders for groceries, supplies, manufactured articles listed in that great institution's catalogs. These two were the late Heber J. Grant and the incumbent president, George Albert Smith.
With the coming of transcontinental rail service through Utah, non-Mormon merchants and other entrepeneurs began to penetrate the trade area in large numbers. They rapidly built up strong commercial connections with business houses in the rest of the country and materially broadened the economic base established by the Mormons.
Salt Lake City very early became a natural center of light industry that grew uop for the processing of raw materials from farm and mine. As an example, there today flourishes a big candy manufacturing business that resulted from a happy combination of a plentiful supply of sugar from the valley's sugar beet refineries, a large body of intelligent labor from a fecundant rural population, and a readily accessible trade outlet in the mountain empire. This candy business is typical of the manner in which Salt Lake City's system of economy is organized. The sugar beets are grown on surrounding farms, processed into sugar in nearby refineries, manufactured right within the city and wholesaled by an aggressive sales force for nearly a thousand miles in each direction, invading Denver on the east, Spokane to the north, San Francisco on the west and Los Angeles to the south.
Agricultural land occupies only 5.5 percent of the area of Utah. Most of this soil is very fertile, however. The arable land is fairly continuous in the great valleys, and Salt Lake city is the natural center. Among the more noted farm products that clear through this center are celery, tomatoes, beans, onions, eggs, turkeys, cherries, peaches, potatoes, apples, pears and livestock products. A big canning industry flourishes. Alfalfa, barley, wheat, oats and rye of the Great Salt Lake valley farms and extensive grazing areas in the hills support a thriving cattle and sheep business that has its axis in Salt Lake City. The city has an active wool and livestock market, with natural sidelines of packing, hides, furs, leather findings, etc. An interesting sidelight of this business is the shipping of deer hides. During the hunting season each fall, deer are so plentiful that their hides actually become a commercial factor, and several carloads of them are either shipped out or processed into fine leather.
Since the advent of modern auto touring, Salt Lake City has enjoyed a remarkably heavy tourist traffic that has poured much wealth into the area. Construction of hotels and motels has not been able to keep pace with the demands placed upon these facilities, especially in the summer and fall. Here, again, the residents of Mormondom are demonstrating their far-sightedness by developing skiing and other winter sports to give the place a year 'round attraction for tourist dollars.
The birth of heavy industry in Utah with the establishment of Geneva steel plant near Provo as a World War II production measure has introduced a powerful new factor into the economic life of Salt Lake City. From its beginning, the mining industry of Utah was largely in non-Mormon ownership and operation and was manned by non-Mormon laborers. Salt Lake City is undergoing a metamorphosis in adjusting itself to the demands of steel and allied heavy industry. This spacious capital of Mormondom has been [sic] only the beginning of its grown. It takes no wild-eyed visionary to predict that Salt Lake City will expand to a population of at least a half a million within the next decade. It takes no clairvoyant, either, to predict that most of this population will be non-Mormon.
Heavy industry brings to Mormondom a glorious opportunity for growth and expansion. On the other hand, the influx of such a vast new population brings a challenge to the very existence of this culture. Basically, the organization of the L.D.S. church appears to have an ability to withstand almost any kind of shock. However, the present manner in which policies are directed does not make it clear that the Mormon church can fully meet the challenge of accomodation and assimilation being violently thrust upon it by a virile new population that feels itself under no obligation to recognize the prophetic powers of the president of the church or members of the council of twelve apostles.
The manner in which this challenge is met will be of vital interest to all of America. If, in order to better comprehend and absorb these incoming people, the church should bring into its highest councils a group of converts as powerful and eloquent as those of earlier days, like Brigham Young and Parley Pratt, then, indeed, Mormonism will experience such a reawakening and rebirth that it could become the world force that its founder and first prophet dreamed for it. The organizational machinery for such a spiritual expansion exists. To make the most of it, however, the church will have to conquer an ingrowing tendency toward stodginess that, perhaps, can be compared somewhat to the lethargic condition of the ranks of commissioned officers that existed just before the avalanche of the second World War hit the army.
Next: Industrial Adaptation
