Toward the evening of the 24th, as if to give hope of future moisture, the Lord sent a beautiful thunder shower, and it rained for a short time over the entire valley. President Woodruff says: "We felt thankful for this, as it was the general opinion that it never rained in the valley during the summer season." Thus closed the day, the great Pioneer Day, to be celebrated each year by thousands and indeed by millions yet unborn.
The following day was Sunday, and the pioneers met for worship at about 10 a. m. The first sermon delivered in the valley was by President Geo. A. Smith, and Bro. Woodruff writes that, "It was an interesting discourse."
President Heber C. Kimball and Ezra T. Benson also spoke in the forenoon.
At 2 p. m., the Sacrament was administered. The congregation was addressed by Elders Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, and several others with closing instructions by President Young in which he warned them against breaking the Sabbath. They must not work, fish, or hunt on that day. He warned them against sin of every kind, and thus there was begun the work of God in the Valleys of the Mountains.
On Monday the 26th President Young and several brethren ascended the summit of a mountain on the north which they named Ensign Peak, a name it has borne ever since. Elder Woodruff was the first to gain the summit of the peak. Here they unfurled the American flag, the Ensign of Liberty to the world. It will be remembered that the country then occupied by the Saints was Mexican soil, and was being taken possession of by the Mormon Battalion and pioneers as a future great commonwealth to the credit and honor of the United States.
Elder Woodruff soon became active in exploring the valley, and penetrating southward to the Utah Lake. He came in contact with roaming Indians but found them friendly and desirous of trading with the whites. After exploring a couple of days, and seeing the new land, with here and there a herd of mountain goats, sheep, and antelope, he and his brethren returned to the pioneer encampment.
Four days after the arrival of the pioneers in the Valley, they selected the site upon which to build the Temple of the Lord. President Young called the Twelve together on this important occasion, and all were united in the choice of the Temple Block. Those who were present on that occasion were President Brigham Young, Elders Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, and Ezra T. Benson.
At that time it was moved and carried that the Temple lot should contain forty acres, but later it was deemed too large a tract to care for properly, and the lot was limited to the ten acre block upon which the Temple now stands.
The city was laid out in blocks of ten acres, divided into eight lots, of equal size, one and a fourth acres in each. President Young expressed a desire that the houses be built in the center of the lot, so that in case of fire the neighbors' houses would not be endangered, being so far apart. The design of President Young was that no speculation in lands by the brethren should be allowed whereby the first comers should enrich themselves at the expense of their brethren who should follow.
Close up to the city limits, the farming land was parceled out in five acre plats, joining them a little farther out into ten acres, and outside of these, twenty acre fields. This arrangement prevented any one man from holding a large tract near the city, and by so doing prevented speculation by the individual to the detriment of the whole community.