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. The houses are generally of adobe (sun-dried bricks), though a few of the newer business blocks are handsome and commodious stone structures. Most of the dwelling houses are small, and but a single story in height, having separate entrances when there is more than one wife in the family. The city is not an imposing one. The wide streets, large grounds around each dwelling, and low, small houses, give it more the appearance of an overgrown village than that of a city. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the plan upon which it is built secures to its inhabitants the maximum of comfort, health and cleanliness. There are no narrow and stifling streets, overshadowed by tall buildings; no dirty alleys; no immense crime and pestilence-breeding tenement houses. Each little dwelling has its garden and orchard, securing to each family the blessings of fresh vegetables and fruit, and making each in a measure self-dependent. The air is pure, blowing down the valley from the mountain heights; and no foul vapors from half protected sewers or reeking courts poison it.
The chief business thoroughfares are Main and Temple streets. The former is entirely devoted to trade, while church edifices are found in the latter. The Tabernacle is, of course, the most prominent object which meets the eye of the traveler as he arrives in Salt Lake City, standing out, as it does, in all its huge proportions, surrounded by the tiny homes of the people. It is on Temple street, in the heart of the city, and is entirely without architectural beauty, its predominant features being its hugeness and its ugliness. It is an enormous wooden structure, oval in form, with an immense dome-like roof, supported by forty-six sandstone pillars. It will seat fifteen thousand persons, and is used for the services of the church, lectures and public gatherings. It contains one of the largest organs in America. It is inclosed within a high wall, and a little to the east of it, within the same inclosure, are the foundations of a new temple, estimated to cost ten millions of dollars, but which will not probably be finished for many years to come. An inferior adobe building, also within the walls, is the celebrated Endowment House, where are performed those sacred and mysterious rites of the Mormon Church which no Gentile may look upon, and where the Saints are sealed to their polygamous wives.
On South Temple street, east of the Tabernacle, is the group of buildings known as Brigham Block, inclosed, like the former, by a high stone wall, and comprising the Tithing House, the Beehive House, the Lion House, the office of the Deseret News, and various other offices and buildings. The Beehive House and the Lion House constituted the residences of the late Brigham Young and eighteen or twenty of his wives. A handsome structure nearly opposite, the most pretentious structure in Salt Lake City, and known as Amelia Palace, was built by Brigham Young, for his favorite wife, Amelia. The theatre is a large building with a gloomy exterior, but handsomely fitted up inside. It is a favorite resort of the Saints, who make it a source of innocent recreation, and entertain no prejudices against it, permitting their wives and children to appear upon its boards. One of the daughters of Brigham Young was at one time an actress at this theatre.
On South Temple street, opposite the Tabernacle, is the Museum, containing interesting products of Mormon industry; specimens of ores from the mines of Utah, and precious stones from the desert; a fair representation of the fauna of the Territory; relics of the mound builders; articles of Indian use and manufacture, and other curiosities, which the visitor may behold on the payment of a small admission fee. The City Hall, which is at the present time used by the Territorial Government, is a handsome building, erected at a cost of sixty thousand dollars. In its rear is the city prison. A co-operative store in successful operation will be found occupying a handsome building on East Temple street. The Deseret National Bank, at the corner of East Temple and South First streets, is also a fine building. The two principal hotels of Salt Lake City are the Walker House, on Main street, and the Townsend House, at the corner of West Temple and South Second streets. With all its quaintness and want of resemblance to other cities, it has adopted the system of horse cars, which run on the principal streets, and make all parts of the city accessible.
About one mile distant from the city are the Warm Springs, issuing from the limestone rock at the foot of the mountains. The water of these springs contains lime, magnesia, iron, soda, chlorine, and sulphuric acid, and their temperature is lukewarm. A bath in them is delightful, and beneficial, if not prolonged. Private bathing apartments are fitted up for the use of bathers. A mile further north are the Hot Springs, also strongly sulphurous, and with a temperature of over 200°. Eggs may be boiled in these springs in three minutes, ready for the table. The water from these springs forms a beautiful lake, called Hot Spring Lake, which practically destroys all agriculture and vegetation for hundreds of yards within the vicinity. Strange as it may seem, the hot water does not prevent the existence of some kinds of excellent fish, among which have been seen some very fine, large trout.
The population of Salt Lake City is something over twenty thousand persons, of whom about one-third are Gentiles and apostate Mormons. 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; and the conditions of the city are favorable for growth in certain directions. Their children are educated and brought up to a higher position than that occupied by their parents; so that whatever may be our opinion as to the advantages or disadvantages, from a religious point of view, in their conversion to the Mormon faith, materially, intellectually and socially they have many of them undoubtedly made a change for the better. They are taken away from the stationary conditions of life in the old world, and transplanted into a new and growing country, where there is plenty of room and incentive for progress and expansion. Though the first generation do not always avail themselves of this room, nor even the second, to its fullest extent, ultimately these people will come to compare favorably with other classes of American citizens.
The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, although it deprived the Mormons of that isolation which they sought, has been of vast benefit to them in material ways. It is said that when the city was first settled the whole community could not have raised one thousand dollars in cash. And up to the completion of the railroad nine-tenths of the business of the Mormon people was conducted on a system of barter. A writer thus facetiously describes the condition of things at that period: "A farmer wishes to purchase a pair of shoes for his wife. He consults the shoemaker, who avers his willingness to furnish the same for one load of wood. He has no wood, but sells a calf for a quantity of adobes, the adobes for an order on the merchant, payable in goods, and the goods and the order for a load of wood, and straightway the matron is shod. Seven watermelons purchased the price of a ticket of admission to the theatre. He paid for the tuition of his children seventy-five cabbages per quarter. The dressmaker received for her services four squashes per day. He settled his church dues in sorghum molasses. Two loads of pumpkins paid his annual subscription to the newspaper. He bought a 'Treatise on Celestial Marriage' for a load of gravel, and a bottle of soothing syrup for the baby with a bushel of string beans."
There are not the most harmonious relations existing between the Mormon and Gentile people of Salt Lake City. Each regards the other with suspicion. The former look upon the latter as hostile to their faith, and determined to destroy it. The Gentiles regard certain practices of the Mormons with abhorrence, and themselves as at heart rebellious to the government to which they have been compelled to submit. The leading papers of the two factions are very hostile, and keep alive the feeling of antagonism.
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. Her future is assured, even though the people who founded her, together with the faith to which they cling, should disappear from the face of the earth, and be forgotten, like the lost tribes of Israel, which they believe themselves to represent. Essentially American in all her features—since no city of the Old World, either ancient or modern, furnishes a prototype—and in her very plan including certain sure elements of success, as our Western States and Territories become filled up with a thriving and industrious people, she will find herself the natural centre of a vast agricultural and mining population, and continue to increase in importance and prosperity.