OCR Text |
Show Escalante and Progression BY MYRON E. CRANDALL When Father Escalante wended his way down the Indian trails through Spanish Fork canyon a century ami a half ago. the autumn tapestries that covered the hillsides were as gorgeous, and the sun shone, no doubt, as brightly, as today. to-day. Perhaps the air was a little crisp, and the wistfulness in his soul as keen as the breeze that blew over the cliffs that walled his Intrepid way. Perchance he wondered if the view that waited him at the canyon's can-yon's end could be as beautiful as the scenes of riotous color that he. was passing through, that long ago Keplember day. When the valley burst upon him. the blue waters of the limpid lake mirrored the cerulean deeps above and the argosy of clouds that sailed the etheral seas. The low hills of the Quirrhs that skirted the horizon beyond lay like watchful sentinels against the western skies. As his eye continued to follow around the encircling bulwarks, crossing the Goshen gap it climbed the heights beyond Santaipiin. then to ascend old Nebo with its lofty head towering above the rest. Back of him arose two majestic mountains that stood its guards to the entrance of the canyon out of which he had just emerged. Dr. Davis, of Harvard university has pronounced the mountain between be-tween Spanish Fork and Maple canyons one of the most beautiful and most typical mountains in America. As his eye continued its journey upon the mountain tops it climbed the heights of Kolob and scaled the precipitous peaks of Rock Canyon. Amid the pines and quaking aspens as-pens it crossed the mountains just east of the placid Jake and finally rested upon the rock-scarred summits sum-mits of Tinrpaimgos, whose towering tower-ing head pierces the starry blue. Surely nature had fashioned the hills as barriers about the vale of loveliness below. The flowering sego lilies were pone, and the spring blooms had . fallen. The breath of autumn may have blighted blight-ed the leaves and was turning them sear anil brown, yet the tall grasses waved on the benches and in the lowlands, the cat-tails and (oolies fringed tbe bike. The willows wil-lows and a few cottoiiwoods skirted the streams. The curling smoke of the Redman's tepee floated gracefully grace-fully upward, the only evidence of human beings that was in this uew-found uew-found land. Though nature had grueed the I place with most every gift in her rich store of blessings, (is evidenced by the vision that was portrayed before him, there was not a man to till the ground. No plow bad furrowed the soil, nor a streamlet been turned uion n cultured plant. Nor had man delved Into the earth to bring forth the treasured metals. If he coukf be here now, or could see us from his abode of bliss how great would seem the progress since that far distant day. He came with the pioneers of liberty lib-erty .when the nation was being born out of travail ami sorrow. Three quarters of a century nfter-wards, nfter-wards, out of travail nnd sorrow, nor pioneer fathers en me to this land, and around the shores of the crystalative lake, where there was heard only the wail of the coyote or the neighing of the Indian cay-use, cay-use, where the wild rose shed Its perfume and the Sego blossomed in bennty, water springs burst forth in earth.- and the arid wastes were turned into fruitful fields. Now the Voice of gladness and singing was in the land. The garnering gar-nering of the golden grain at harvest har-vest lime, and tolls plenteous re1; ward soon made this a cherished homeland. Cities arose like magic until today the transformation scene of industry and progress is most glorious to contemplate. i Like Escalante1 lof old. let us trace in, reality what, perhaps hei saw in vision as he surveyed the! lovely landscape with his padre friends that memorable day. 1 The majestic peaks are still as-mighty, as-mighty, the lake as Til no and beautiful, beau-tiful, the toolies bend as gracefully to ea eh si gh i n g breeze, y et cities fair and happy hamlets lie scattered scatter-ed o'er the arcadian vale the country we love to call onr own. To the extreme south on the eastern east-ern slope of the Tintic. on the county's border edge; the largest, s ver mine in the world is pouring forth her glittering treasures. In the adjoining valley whose upper up-per lands were parched and dry. now are extensive orchards and numerous acres of productive soil. The great Strawberry government govern-ment projects pours forth her impounded im-pounded waters ond the sinuous canal carries them around the foot-1 hills of the southern part of the great country, insuring a bounteous harvest though rain may cease to fall or clouds drop down their tears. Agriculture, horticulture, flora-culture, flora-culture, sheep and stock and poultry poul-try raising : mining and manufacturing manufac-turing everywhere flourish. The modern homes with vlneclad arbors, trellised walks and rose garlanded lawns, the spacious well filled barns and magnificent motor cars tell of tlie material prosperity. Large, commodious, well-built school houses adorn en Oh city and smallest hamlet. Her university is famed far and wide for its bigl standards of learning, and especial-: !v for the men and women it hasj turned out who have bellied build our great state. The high school in one of he? cities. Spriugville. owns tbe largest collection of paintings of any city in the I'nlted States. Her citizens are of the highest type, patriotic. God-fearingi home-loving, home-loving, progressive, intelligent, and of that class that makes governments govern-ments stable and communities happy. hap-py. They grasp new ideas of progress pro-gress and put them into practice. The county fair is one of the most successful means of getting! these new ideas and of continuing) this progress nnd properiry. The fair is ours to support, ours: to be benefitted from, ours where j we can see the work of our children's chil-dren's and our wives' and mothers' ingenuity: ours where wo come to vie in generous and good-natured rivalry in exhibiting the producrs of the home and the farm, the shop and the factory. Let ns 'support it. extend its size, and therefore its benefits each year. Not only its benefits of bringing us to it that we may get new ideas of animal husbandry, poultry raising, or potato growing, but thaf we may become more closely bound together to-gether in tlie fellowship of citizens and neighbors; and thus become not only empire builders but builders of brotherhood. "We are all blind until we see That in the human plan Nothing is worth the making If it does not make the man. Why build these cities beautiful If man unbuilded goes. In vain we build the building Unless the builder also grows.' 1 j, Father Escalante Js sleeping with his fathers, yet cities beautiful arise where he saw them in fancy. Men are still weavers of dreams. Who shall say what shall be the panora ma upon which these encircling encir-cling hills shall gaze at the next sesqui-centennial celebration, when the wimpling breeze from off our blue water lake blows over the graves where we and our children i and our children's children are 1 sleeping. |