Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-23
Brigham Young's Monument
By Frederic j. Haskin

high barricade on three sides, while ON the
fourth the city slopes down to a fertile val
ley, fenced off in orchards and farms. The
Great Salt lake is visible only through a tel
escope, being twelve miles distant, and the
Great Salt desert is even farther away After
the first shock of surprise you cease to con-
meet the city with salt in any way--it is SO
green and fresh-looking-and later you are
glad to have the Salt lake where it is in all
it's solemn, desolate grandeur as you behold
it from the window of Southern Pacific
train on your journey westward.
When the Mormons first saw Salt Lake
City they did not like it. They had travelled
for thousand miles Or more in tedious
and painful fashion, walking and drying OK
carts all the way from Missouri, and they
were, to borrow phrase from" the Mormon
Bible, exceeding sore. Their feet especially
were sore. But even SO, they declared that
they would rather go on for another thou
sand miles rather than settle down on the
site they beheld from Emigration canyon
merely a great, placid basin of sand, dotted
with gray sagebrush. Brigham Young, how
ever, appeared to be much impressed with it,
He remained silent for several minutes, gaz-
ing down on its snug, cliff-protected bare
ness, and then he made his historic remark
This is the place."
The Mormons didn't like it any better
after that, but there was no disputing Brig
hams word. You can better understand
this after seeing the portrait of the Mormon
leader which hangs in the Mormon museum
the portrait of a man with a square jaw
and high forehead with shrewd gray eyes
and thin, straight mouth curving down ab-
ruptly at the corners. So the party moved
down into the basin and camped on the
ground where the city hall stands today,
There were 143 men in ALL three women,
two children and horses, mules, oxen, dogs
and chickens. Personal belongings were few,
because most Of the space in the OK carts
had been required for rifles, crude farming
implements, seed grain and years supply
of provisions. One lonely cannon also added
greatly to their courage in q country filled
with hostile Indians.
First Irrigation
Under the direction of Young, the camp
ers Immediately started breaking the sun
baked earth, but in doing so broke their
blows, When most OF the farm implements
had been ruined for life and all seemed lost,
| Young had an inspiration. He ordered them
| to dam the nearby mountain streams SO
that they flooded the land, and thus, &C
! cording to Utah historians, irrigation by
white men began in America.
| A fort was built as pFecaution against
| attacks from Indians but as Youngs policy
of making friends with the savages proved
successful this was soon abandoned and log
houses were built.
Then, just as conditions We're becoming
fairly. tolerable, came the crickets. In
huge, ravenous droves they descended on
the new struggling crops and started devouF-
ing them while the poor pioneers looked
helplessly on. Insecticides were not on the
market then, and it is doubtful if any in
secticide ever invented would have proved a
match for the fabulous Utah crickets. New
ertheess, once more all was not lost. In
the wake of the criekets came an equally
favenous flock of gulls-thousands OF them
filling the air with their harsh screeches
of delight as they fell upon the choice, fat
insects. The Mormons believed that the
Of no ipdc
but they also gave the gulls due credit, and
in Utah today the gull is sacred bird, rigid
ly protected by law.
In 1849 Brigham Young started to put
into operation his plans for building great
independent Mormon empire. Salt Lake City
was not permitted to grow up in the usual
haphazard fashion of most American cities;
it was carefully planned and laid out in
Straight, wide streets, with long rectangular
blocks, six to mile Young said, Let there
be green lawns, shrubs and trees" and In
due time his word was! obeyed. Today nearly
every house stands in it's own green grounds,
shaded by tall trees, usually poplars, and in
variably somewhere in the foreground, nara
at work, is the secret of all this greenery-
the humble garden hose.
Early Schools
Next Young turned his attention to the
provisions of educational facilities to which
he attached normous Importance, although
he himself had been trained a. glazer ana
cabinet-maker and had suffered only one
week of school The first c1assrooms were
opened in tents and wagons, but these were
soon transferred into log houses and later
into pretentious quarters of adobe, brick and
stone AS early as 1850 the Mormon Uni
versity of Desert was founded, Wnlle Two
years later a territorial library was estab-
lished in the Council house, and books maui
ed by OK team all the way from New YORK.
Today IS per cent of Utah's revenue is spent
on education.
The matter of recreation was also given
practical consideration, Young holding even
at this early -ay that play was fundamental
necessity of human existence. So, while the
first school was being built, men were also
at work erecting a theater and the Mormon
farmers began to alternate their plo"lhs
with rehearsals of popular melodramas.
In the exact center of the city, dividing it
into four sections, large space was set
aside for religious worship, and a thick
adobe wall built around it. This wall has
buildings erected within it retain all of their
pristine picturesqueness The Mormon
Temple, of course, ought to be phenomenally
sturdy for it was built by an elaborate and
tedious process covering period OF 40 years
The huge, graysh-white stones that form it's
walls were hauled by OK team from granite
auarres twenty miles from the city, and the
Mormons claim that it often took four yoke
of oxen four days to cart one stone After
the stones arrived hey still required great
deal of attention, for they had to be lifted
together without the use of mortar.
The object of all these forty years of in
credible toll is not, might be expected, q
thing of overwhelming beauty. 1t is too fire.
quently punctured with curious windows,
some of them shaped like portfolios, for lat.
But it's tall spires give a heavenly dignity
i+r oily cip oft 70 q