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Show P i o n e e Davs? -i j - Contributed by Carol Durrant Green River Ward, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Late in July, 1847, a memorable episode was being enacted which would mold the lives of millions of people. At this time, an advance company of Mormon pioneers, led by Brigham Young and the twelve apostles, blazed their way to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. This was the place which Brigham Young declared to be the chosen place for these pioneers to settle. Even Jim Bridger's doubts that corn could not be raised in the Great Basin did not daunt this fearless leader. Utah, at this time, was a literal desert wilderness. For centuries, Utah had been the home of Indian tribes which lived any way they could. Some lived on insects and rodents, while others secured se-cured deer and other fur-bearing animals for their sustenance. When the emigrants emi-grants of 1846 came bound for the fertile fields of Californias and Oregon, Utah lay across their path like a menacing barrier taking a heavy toll in their crossing. At this time, no one thought of making their homes in this harsh, barren wasteland. As the Mormon Pioneers slogged their way through Iowa mud in the spring of 1846, they wanted only to be out of the k bounds of mobocratic rule to which they had been subjected. In this state of mind, they sought the solitude of Utah. Twice these people had gathered on the American Frontier and twice they had been uprooted. Now they had crossed a continent in search of an asylum, where unmolested and by hard work, they might bring to realization their ideal of Gods Latter Day Kingdom. When Brigham Young looked out across the Salt Lake Valley on the 24th of July in 1847, he announced, "This is the Place." As the people gazed across the primitive expanse of the Great Basin, one of the leaders, John Tayler, exclaimed, ex-claimed, "Our presence alone gives it value." Yet some of the people visioned this desert "blossoming like a rose." Wilford Woodruff wrote in his diary, "Through our minds we contemplated that not many years hence the House of God would stand on top of the mountains while the valleys would be covered with orchards, vineyards, and gardens." The grey sleeping acres challenged these brave people, and within hours after the party reached the valley, they had selected a plot of land and had begun preparing it for crops. When the ground proved to be so dry and hard as to be unworkable, they dammed one of the streams flowing from the mountains and flooded the parched earth the beginning be-ginning of modern irrigation in North America. When Samuel Brannan. who had taken a group of saints on to California, tried to coax Brigham Young to California with him, Brigham Young refused by saying, "We have lodged just where the Lord wants his people to gather." We now commemorate these faithful people, who had traversed a continent to find religious freedom our pioneer ' projenitors who weren't just building towns and farms, but were creating a civilization. So each July 24th, we pay homage to these brave people who found, challenged, chal-lenged, and tamed this wild new land and provided us with a proud heritage and an appreciation for our unconquer-able unconquer-able forefathers. |