Salt Lake City

“ 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. ”

“ Salt Lake City is by far the most quiet, orderly, and peaceable city west of New England. Drunkenness among its people is almost unknown. Deeds of violence occur at rare intervals. Burglaries and robberies are almost unheard of, and, when taking place, are usually traceable to some demoralized sportingman from the mining Territories. Gambling-houses are strictly forbidden; the observance of the Sabbath almost universal. The taxes in Utah are much lighter than elsewhere on the Pacific Coast; and Salt Lake City, as well as all the counties, and the Territory itself, are entirely free from debt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Salt Lake City is divided into twenty wards, nearly every one of which has a square. Every ward has its master, who superintends the public improvements, and sees that every man does his share without shirking. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Salt Lake City is the most important town between Denver and the Pacific Coast. Its interests are mainly commercial, the city being the distributing centre for a vast and rich mining, stock-raising, and farming country. ”

“ Do you think the tithing is all going to be spent in Salt Lake City? Do you think that the remote settlements are all going to contribute of their strength and their increase to build up this city alone? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Seen from one of these dizzy heights, twelve or fifteen miles off, Great Salt Lake City is toned down and diminished till it is suggestive of a child's toy-village reposing under the majestic protection of the Chinese wall.
On some of those mountains, to the southwest, it had been raining every day for two weeks, but not a drop had fallen in the city. And on hot days in late spring and early autumn the citizens could quit fanning and growling and go out and cool off by looking at the luxury of a glorious snow-storm going on in the mountains. ”

“ The difficulties of the settlement and upbuilding of Salt Lake City would not, however, entitle it to a place among the representative cities of our continent. Other citizens have endured equal or greater hardships in developing nearly every portion of our common country. ”

“ Tell us what privileges Salt Lake City offers to the man who is poor because he must work with his hands. Has Salt Lake City abolished any of the social evils that pauperize her people? Has she driven out the corrupt political machine? Has she established a municipal building to offer to temporarily homeless people shelter and food as a safeguard against the jail? Has she created a public bath, an emergency hospital, a free employment bureau? ”

“ When the travel-worn gold-hunter reaches the mountain-top overlooking Salt Lake City, and sees for the first time this haven of rest in the middle of his exhausting journey, he falls down upon his knees and thanks God, with tears of joy streaming from his eyes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lying between two prominent mountain chains, the chief city in a vast valley which the enterprise of man has demonstrated to be fertile; furnishing a depot of supplies, and a mart and shipping place for produce and manufactures; Salt Lake City is destined to become an important point in the western section of our country. ”

“ They brag constantly, and largely, about Great Salt Lake City, and surely they have a right to. In the essential points of beauty, comfort, cleanliness, and good order, it has few equals, and perhaps no superiors of its age and size anywhere, and all things considered is indeed a perfect miracle for Utah. In the very heart of the great internal basin of the continent, and the centre of a busy and thriving people, it really seemed to be a natural metropolis there, and was everywhere talked of as the future workshop and mart of that region. ”

“ Legislators constantly passing to and from California find Salt Lake City a most attractive stopping-place. The Mormon hierarchy, sly, cunning, astute, to the last limit of human nature, is ever sharply on the lookout for these potent summer visitors. ‘Prophets’ and ‘apostles’ board every train of cars that enters Utah bearing an important traveller. The freedom of the city, the hospitality of the show ‘happy families,’ who are never taken by surprise on an off-day of misery, is lavished upon the ingenuous guest.... ”

“ Of all the cities which have sprung into being and grown and prospered, since the discovery of the American continent, there is not one with which is associated so much interest, and which attracts such universal curiosity as Salt Lake City. ”

“ My Pa's easy chair sat in the parlour, with a print-out of the day's Salt Lake City Bugler folded on the side-table. I walked to one wall and laid my palm against it, the familiar cool glassy stuff it was made of. "Window," I said, and wiped a line across the wall. Wherever my hand wiped went transparent. It was a sunny day in 1975 — 1980, by then, but it would be 75 in my mind forever. Under the dome, Greater Salt Lake was warm and tranquil. I saw boys my age scooting around in jet-packs, dodging hover-traffic. ”

“ Salt Lake City covers as large an area as many other cities with five times its population, and, excepting the business part, is largely composed of villas.
"Other principal cities are Ogden, Logan and Provo. Ogden, thirty-seven miles north of Salt Lake, is the railroad city of the territory, and shows the results of the thrift and industry of its inhabitants on every side. Many beautiful natural attractions surround it—its warm springs and rugged canyons being admired by all who see them. ”

“ Many of the leading men of the Southern States, having visited Salt Lake City and been treated kindly by our people—having observed the thrift, enterprise and peacefulness of our homes, extended to us many kindnesses and many courtesies, notwithstanding that, with the mass of the people, it was quite unpopular to do so. ”

“ As soon as the weather moderated in the spring of 1858, the people commenced to move from Salt Lake City and more northern settlements, south as far as Utah county. Every house in Salt Lake City was abandoned, not a family remaining. Men were detailed to set fire to and burn everything that could be burned. ”

“ Salt Lake cannot be called a very beautiful town, neither is there anything ugly or repulsive about it. From the slopes of the Wahsatch foothills, or old lake benches, toward Fort Douglas it is seen to occupy the sloping gravelly delta of City Creek, a fine, hearty stream that comes pouring from the snows of the mountains through a majestic glacial cañon; and it is just where this stream comes forth into the light on the edge of the valley of the Jordan that the Mormons have built their new Jerusalem. ”

“ Salt Lake, on account of its unpaved streets, must be miserable as a place of residence. In wet weather the mud in the streets is from six inches to two feet deep, and in dry weather the dust is intolerable. It is probably not quite so bad in these respects as Key West, Florida, but it is always disagreeable enough. Yet the city is well laid out; all the streets are over one hundred feet wide; there is a good system of electric street-cars, and{241} there are many fine granite and brick business blocks. Salt Lake has an evident air of prosperity. ”

“ On our way westward, we stop for a day at Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, some sixteen hundred miles from Chicago. The site of the present town was an unbroken wilderness so late as 1838, but it now boasts a population of twenty-six thousand souls. The peculiar people who have established themselves here, have by industry and a complete system of irrigation, brought the entire valley to a degree of fertility unsurpassed by the same number of square miles on this continent. It is not within our province to discuss the domestic life of the Mormons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This population is made up of all nationalities, apostles and missionaries being continually sent out to nearly every part of the civilized world, to make proselytes, and bring them to the fold. These converts to the faith are usually from the lower classes, ignorant and superstitious; and as a consequence the intellectual and social standards of Salt Lake City are not high. But with their new faith these people acquire habits of industry, if they never possessed them before ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ One day’s ride by train from Beaver Cañon through a section of country composed mostly of sand and sage brush, overlying that same sheet of lava, and through Mormon cities of eight and ten thousand inhabitants, where they had made the desert blossom for miles around, brought me back to Salt Lake City. ”

“ 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 curious, in this connection, to remember that Spain's motive in founding her California colonies, four generations ago, was, on the temporal side, the more strongly to establish herself in the Philippines.
Strangest of all stories is that of Salt Lake City, the product of religious zeal seeking a supposedly inaccessible desert as a haven from persecution. Finally, when the laborious development of the wilderness has brought rich fruitage, this hermit city finds itself a station on one of the world's most-traveled highways. ”

“ 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. ”