Salt Lake is a wonderful city. Whatever you may think of the Mormons, you have to admit that they are a far-sighted, industrious, and executive people. Your chief interest centers about the Temple Block, a ten-acre square surrounded by a stone and adobe wall twelve feet high. The grounds are a beautiful park. The Bureau of Information is a fine large building, where literature is distributed to three hundred thousand visitors yearly. As many as thirty-nine states and seven foreign countries had been represented on the registry in one day. “No fees charged, and no donations received,” was the watchword on these grounds. We wondered how the place was supported, and were told that there were no pew-rentals in any of their churches, and no collections made, nor were there any contribution-boxes found there.
“The Mormons observe the ancient law of tithing, as it was given to the Children of Israel, by which a member pays one-tenth of his income, as a free-will offering, for the support of the Church.”
In the Temple Block is the Assembly Hall, a semi-Gothic structure of gray granite, with a seating capacity of two thousand, often used for public lectures and concerts by any denomination. The Tabernacle is a world-famed auditorium, seating eight thousand people, noted for its remarkable construction and acoustic properties. The wooden roof, self-supporting, rests upon buttresses of red sandstone, twelve feet apart, the whole circumference of the building. These pillars support wooden arches ten feet in thickness and spanning 150 feet. The arches, of a lattice-truss construction, are put together with wooden pins, there being no nails or iron of any kind used in the framework. The building was erected between 1863 and 1870, and was nearly completed before the railroads reached Utah. All the imported material had to be hauled with ox-teams from the Missouri River. The original cost was three hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of the cost of the organ. Our guide, a lady, told us that their pioneer leader, Brigham Young, had planned and supervised the erection of the building. “He was a glazier and cabinet-maker by trade, but had been schooled chiefly by hardship and experience. He not only designed this and the Temple, but he built an equally wonderful commonwealth; one which is unique among the Middle and Western states for law and order, religious devotion and loyalty.” She told us that their church had established headquarters successively in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and, after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, in 1846, it was obliged to seek refuge in the Rocky Mountains. They have no professional or paid preachers; any member of the congregation may be called upon to address them. We were interested to hear of their women. “They are the freest, most intensely individualistic women on earth, having three organizations of their own. The Relief Society has thirty thousand members, publishes a monthly periodical, has up-to-date offices, owns many ward-houses, and spends thousands of dollars yearly for charity and education. The Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association was organized in 1869 by Brigham Young, chiefly among his own daughters.” (Some family party!) This association now numbers over thirty thousand girls. It also edits and controls a magazine. Besides these activities, there is the Primary Association, with many thousands of children marshaled under its banner. We remembered that the women have full suffrage in Utah, and were not surprised to hear of their ward conferences and public speakers. This did not sound much like the “down-trodden slaves” that many consider the Mormon women to be.
Most prominent among the structures in the “Block” is the Temple, began less than six years after the pioneers found here a desolate sagebrush wilderness. Before railroads were built to the granite quarries, twenty miles southeast of the city, the huge blocks of stone were hauled by ox-teams, requiring at times four yoke of oxen four days to transport a single stone! Forty years were required in its completion, and the structure stands as a monument to the untiring energy of these people. Its cost, in all, was four million dollars. Visitors have never been admitted to the Temple since its dedication in 1893. “It was not designed as a place of public assembly,” our guide informed us; “it is to us a holy place devoted to sacred ordinances, and open only to our own church members in good standing.” I wish that space permitted me to quote all that we heard of their marriages, and even divorces, and of their many quaint customs.
The figure surmounting the Temple is twelve feet in height, of hammered copper covered with gold leaf, and represents the angel Moroni, the son of Mormon, the writer of the Book of Mormon, which “is an inspired historical record of the ancient inhabitants of the American continent, corresponding to the Old Testament.” Mormon, who lived about 400 A. D., was one of the last of their prophets, and into the Book of Mormon compiled the traditions which had come to him through generations. This is not the Mormon Bible, for they use the King James translation that our Christian churches use.
The Sea-Gull Monument is also in the “Block.” It commemorates a historic incident of pioneer days, and was designed by Mahonri M. Young, a grandson of Brigham. A granite base of twenty tons, resting on a concrete foundation, supports a granite column fifteen feet high, surmounted by a granite globe. Two bronze sea-gulls rest upon this ball. The birds weigh five hundred pounds, and the stretch of their wings is eight feet. On three sides of the base, in relief sculpture, the sea-gull story is told, which, briefly, is this: In 1848 this was the earliest settlement in the Rocky Mountains, and less than a year old, consisting of a camp, a log and mud fort enclosing huts, tents and wagons, with about eighteen hundred people. Their handful of crops the first year, mainly potatoes, having failed, they were looking for a good harvest the second year, or they would face starvation. In the spring of 1848 five thousand acres of land were under cultivation in the valley, nine hundred with winter wheat. Then came the plague of crickets (our friends the grasshopper family). “They rolled in legions down the mountain sides, attacking the young grain and destroying the crops.” Men, women and children fought them with brooms, with fire, and even dug ditches and turned water into the trenches. It looked hopeless; their crops seemed doomed, when great flocks of sea-gulls swept down on the crickets and devoured them. The Mormons compare the incident to the saving of Rome by the cackling geese.
We heard an amusing story of how Brigham Young came by his name. Originally his surname was “Brigham.” Once, when his agent returned with some prospective brides, Brigham, looking them over and finding them too old, exclaimed, “Go find others, and bring ’em young.”
The Utah Hotel is one of the finest in the country. It is owned and run by the Mormons, and it does them great credit. We dined in the roof-garden, which compares favorably with that of any hotel in New York. You look off to the Wasatch range of mountains, the beautiful fertile valley, and the great Salt Lake, beyond which lies the desert.
The executive staff of the Mormon Church has one of the finest buildings in the city. The interior is paneled with native marbles and woods and represents a fortune.
Returning to Ogden, we spent the next day visiting Ogden Canyon, a short trip of twenty miles. We drove through groves of walnut trees laden with nuts. Making a sharp turn on a good macadam road, you wind through a deep canyon gorgeous with autumn foliage, a beautiful sight. The river bank is lined with vine-covered bungalows, almost hidden from view. The canyon streams are noted for the brook-trout fishing. A Boston chap told us that he and two other boys caught ninety pounds in three days. We lunched at the Hermitage, the best-known resort near Ogden. It is built of logs, in the wildest part of the canyon. The house was decorated with ferns and mountain wild flowers, as artistically as a private home. We certainly enjoyed the brook-trout dinner ($1.50) of fish caught that day in front of the hotel. Of course, this cannot be compared to Yellowstone Canyon, but it is very beautiful and well worth the trip from Ogden.