Great Salt Lake City

“ Trade and its necessities dictate where shall be built the commercial centres of the world. It need not be demonstrated that all the great cities of our day owe their importance to some base worldly advantage, visible to the eyes of uninspired men, and are liable to lose their position and power in the world by any trivial circumstance. Not so, however, with the city whose career we chronicle. Founded by inspiration, Salt Lake City must be eternal. It despises the factitious aids by which other cities attain to greatness. ”

“ The corporate limits aggregate about fifty square miles; no city in the world, perhaps, possesses streets of such an extraordinary width. Through their whole vast length the magnificent trees which fringe them are irrigated by streams of pure water flowing from the several cañons in the vicinity. By this constant passage of these mountain streams, the air is deliciously cooled, and Salt Lake City made one of the most beautiful and charming places on the North American continent. ”

“ As in India, the mere necessaries of life at Great Salt Lake City are cheap: the foreign luxuries, and even comforts, are exorbitantly dear. A family may live almost for nothing upon vegetables grown in their own garden, milk from their own cows, wheaten bread, and butter which derives a peculiar sweetness from the bunch-grass. ”

“ They have laid out a city called "Great Salt Lake City." In addition to their private dwellings, they have raised several elegant and magnificent public buildings. Many mills are in operation, and factories are also in course of erection. Public institutions for education have been established; one of these the State Legislature has endowed with an annual sum of five thousand dollars for the term of twenty years. Having come "up through great tribulation," they are not forgetful in their prosperity of their brethren who are still in adversity, scattered among the nations. ”

“ There is a certain monotony of life in Great Salt Lake City which does not render the subject favorable for description. Moreover, a Moslem gloom, the result of austere morals and manners, of the semi-seclusion of the sex, and, in my case, of a reserve arising toward a stranger who appeared in the train of federal officials, [419] hangs over society. ”

“ The questions arise, are there no more pioneers? Have they ceased to be—have we all found the haven of rest so long looked for? Are the waste places all built up? I cannot think that all progress is at an end, notwithstanding Salt Lake City is a great place. ”

“ I "queried" of my companion how the new arrivals usually behave at Great Salt Lake City, when the civilization, or rather the humanization of a voyage, a long journey, and the sense of helplessness caused by new position, have somewhat mitigated their British bounce and self-esteem. "Pretty well," he replied; "all expect to be at the top of the tree at once, and they find themselves in the wrong box; no man gets on here by pushing; he begins at the lowest seat; a new hand is not trusted; he is first sent on mission, then married, and then allowed to rise higher if he shows himself useful." ”

“ The total number of Gentiles in the city is probably not more than 300, a small proportion to a body of at least 9000. A stranger, especially an official, is kindly warned, on his first arrival at Great Salt Lake City, of its inveterate cliquism, and is amicably advised to steer a middle course, without turning to the right or to the left, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Christianity and Mormonism. This mezzo-termine may be possible in official matters; in society it is not. ”

“ It matters not whether you dwell in Great Salt Lake City, or in the different settlements of this territory, or whether you are associated with those that are following some special branch of mechanism, if you have the principles of eternal life, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the will of the Lord, the power of God within you, for then you will be contented. ”

“ Turning left we came around the shoulder of the mountain, and there to our left was Great Salt Lake, sparkling and blue-green in the morning light, a mountainous island in the middle of it. We could see the Casino at the end of the long pier at Saltair, a favorite resort for Salt Lake City people. We passed the miners' homes at Magna and Garfield, someone having written facetiously the sign "Mosquito Park" over the entrance to a swampy district with its little settlement of cottages. Now we came into a beautiful upland country with fine farms and every appearance [Pg 155] of prosperity. ”

“ Thus the expense of living in Utah Territory is higher than in the Eastern States, where again it exceeds that of England. In Great Salt Lake City $10,000 (=£2000) per annum would be equal to about £500 in London. Fortunately for the poor, the excessive purity of the air, as in the Arabian Desert, enables them to dispense with, and not to miss, many articles, such as stimulants, which are elsewhere considered necessaries. ”

“ Salt Lake City—Canada—Vancouver—Hawaii—Fiji—Australia—New Zealand—Tasmania—Summer at Home.
The fall of 1908 saw me off on a tour which finally took me round the world. Space will only permit of its itinerary and a few of my impressions and experiences. From Amarillo I trained north to Salt Lake City, passing through the wonderful gorge of the Arkansas River and the cañon of the Grand; scenery extremely wild and impressive. At Salt Lake found a large, busy, up-to-date city. Visited the tabernacle, and heard the great organ, the largest in the world ”

“ Ogden, now the stopping point on the Pacific Railroad for Salt Lake City, and about forty miles north of it, was then a smart little town of perhaps 1200 inhabitants, and rapidly growing larger. It was Salt Lake City over again, on a reduced scale, but evidently patterning after it, both in plan and detail. Its streets were broad and rectangular; its irrigating streams, clear and cold from the neighboring cañons; its houses, adobe or frame; and its yards and gardens, a mass of beauty and luxuriance. A general air of industry and thriftiness pervaded the little community. ”

“ This point will doubtless be settled by Captain W. F. Raynolds, of the United States Topographical Engineers, who, accompanied by Colonel J. Bridger, was, at the time of my visit to Great Salt Lake City, exploring the Valley of the Yellow Stone.
But we have not yet reached our destination, which is two miles below the South Pass.THE SOUTH PASS. Pacific Springs is our station; it lies a little down the hill, and we can sight it from the road. The springs are a pond of pure, hard, and very cold water, surrounded by a strip of shaking bog, which must be boarded over before it will bear a man. ”

“ Two more miles led us to Lehi, a rough miniature of Great Salt Lake City, in which the only decent house was the bishop's; in British India it would have been the collector and magistrate's. My companions pointed out to me a hut in which an apostate Mormon's throat had been cut by blackened faces. It is gratifying to observe that throughout the United States, as in the Old Country, all historical interest pales before a barbarous murder. As we advanced a wall of rock lay before us ”

“ San Pete Farm, in the valley and on the creek of the same name, lies 150 miles south of Great Salt Lake City; it supports, besides those who come for temporary assistance, a band of thirty souls; 200 acres have been planted with wheat and potatoes, two adobe houses and a corral have been made, and irrigating trenches have been dug. ”

“ I. EMIGRANT’S ITINERARY, Showing the distances between camping-places, the several mail-stations where mules are changed, the hours of travel, the character of the roads, and the facilities for obtaining water, wood, and grass on the route along the southern bank of the Platte River, from St. Joseph, Mo., viâ Great Salt Lake City, to Carson Valley. ”

“ The minor mechanical contrivances, the remarkable inventions of the Eastern States—results of a necessity which removes every limit to human ingenuity—such as sewing-machines, cataract washing-machines, stump-extracting machines, and others, which, but for want of hands, would never have been dreamed of, are not unknown at Great Salt Lake City. ”

“ There is now—has been for years—a trading post where a Canadian Frenchman and an American partner, with Indian wives, have provided entertainment or furnished supplies to emigrants and Indians. It is near the Green River crossing, on the road from the South Pass to great Salt Lake City, via Fort Bridger. ”

“ The southern road, viâ Fillmore and San Bernardino, to San Pedro, where the traveler can embark for San Francisco, is long and tedious; water is found at thirty-mile distances; there are three deserts; and bunch and other grasses are not plentiful. It has one great merit, namely, that of being rarely snowed up, except between the Rio Virgen and Great Salt Lake City: the best traveling is in Spring, when the melting snows from the eastern hills fill the rivulets. ”

“ Utah Territory is situated in the parallel of the Mediterranean; the southern boundary corresponds with the provinces along the Amoor lately acquired by Russia, and with Tasmania in the southern hemisphere. But the elevation, that grand modifier of climate, renders it bleak and liable to great vicissitudes of temperature. The lowest valley rises 4000 feet above sea level; the mountains behind Great Salt Lake City are 6000 feet high ”

“ Every adobe brick in the place has been estimated to have cost a cent, as at Aden each cut stone was counted a rupee; and the purchase of lumber has enriched the enemy. In 1858 the Peace Commissioners sent by the supreme government conceded to the Mormons a point which saved the Saints. The army was not to be "located" within forty miles of Great Salt Lake City; thus the pretty sites about Utah Lake were banned to them, and the Mormons, it is said, "jockeyed" them out of the rich and fertile Cache Valley, eighty miles north of the head-quarters. ”

“ In the basin of the Green River, fifty miles south of Fillmore City, is a fine wool-producing country 7000 square miles in area. Even the ubiquitous sage will serve for camels. As has been mentioned, Durhams, Devons, and Merino tups have found their way to Great Salt Lake City, and the terrible milk-sickness [9] of the Western States has not.
In 1860 the Valley of the Great Salt Lake alone produced 306,000 bushels of grain ”

“ Utah-born girls, the offspring of plural wives, have figures that would make Paris envious; and they carry themselves with almost oriental dignity. There is nothing, so far as I have seen, in the manners of Salt Lake City to make me suspect the existence of that licentiousness of which so much has been written, but a great deal on the contrary to convince me of a perfectly exceptional reserve and self-respect. It is only a blockhead that could mistake the natural gayety of the country for any other than it is. ”

“ It is generally believed that gold exists upon the Wasach Mountains, within sight of Great Salt Lake City, and in 1861 a traveling party is reported to have found a fine digging in the north. Lumps of virgin silver are said to have been discovered upon the White Mountains, in the south of the Territory, and Judge Ralston, I am informed, has lately hit upon a mine near the western route. Copper, zinc, and lead have been brought from Little Salt Lake Valley and sixty miles east of the Vegas de Santa Clara. ”

“ Last Days at Great Salt Lake City.
I now terminate my observations upon the subject of Mormonism. It will be remarked that the opinions of others—not my own—have been recorded as carefully as my means of study have permitted, and that facts, not theories, have been the object of this dissertation.
It will, I think, be abundantly evident that Utah Territory has been successful in its colonization. Every where, indeed, in the New World, the stranger wonders that a poor man should tarry in Europe, or that a rich man should remain in America ”

“ I need hardly say that at Great Salt Lake City party feeling rises higher, perhaps, than in any other small place, because religious acrimony is superadded to the many conflicting interests. Every man's concerns are his neighbor's; no one, apparently, ever heard of that person who "became immensely rich"—to quote an Americanism—by "minding his own business." As often happens, religion is made, like slavery in the Eastern States and opium in China, the cheval de bataille ”

“ When the train reached the public square—at Great Salt Lake City the "squares" are hollow as in England, not solid as in the States—of the 8th ward, the wagons were ranged in line for the final ceremony. Before the invasion of the army the First President made a point of honoring the entrance of hand-cart trains (but these only) by a greeting in person. Of late he seldom leaves his house except for the Tabernacle: when inclined for a picnic, the day and the hour are kept secret. ”

“ To the north, or before us, and far below, lay a long broad stretch, white as snow—the Saleratus Desert, west of the Great Salt Lake. It wore a grisly aspect in the silvery light of the moon. Behind us was the brown plain, sparsely dotted with shadows, and dewless in the evening as in the morning. As the party ascended the summit with much noisy shouting, they formed a picturesque group—the well-bred horses wandering to graze, the white-tilted wagons with their panting mules, and the men in felt capotes and huge leather leggins. ”