| Show Ufa SO Sunday August JO 1998 r Stanoaro-Examne- Steven Heath tracks presidential visits to Beehive State By JANELLE StanoarJ-Examoe- r The B1D01NGER HYATT sta! “felt deceived" by his advisers negative reports about Mormons Heath said Theodore Roosevelt? Grant was the first category is visits to Buzzers reads? The US president who staved longer m Utah than any other presidential visitor No buzzers on this one? Sony you're out of time On to the next answer: ’ The first president to drop a pin in the Salt Lake Tabernacle setting a tradition that even today is used to show otT the building's excellent acoustics This is Steven Heath's kind of game Heath a mathematics professor at Southern Utah Universitv m Cedar Cuv relishes historical mvstcnes ndwhen the question presented itself -inspired b George Bush's stop m Cedar City last year - Heath sat down to figure out just how manv presidents have visited Utah He presented the answer - as well as the questions - at the recent annual gathering of the Utah Historical Society OK Question: Who is Bill Clinton? Clinton indeed holds the record for the longest stay visit m topping even the two-da- y 1923 of W'arren G Harding who toured Zion National Park Clinton's visit however wasn't even of historical note he was merely vacationing when he and his family stayed for three nights last February m Deer Valley Question No 2: Who is Heath began his research only to find he was quickly overwhelmed Many people who would be president - some who actually were - have stopped in Utah to campaign Heath narrowed his focus and the question became: How many sitting or incumbent presidents have passed through our fair state? Twenty-fiv- e to be exact with the record tied by Ronald Reagan and William Howard Taft Reagan visited Utah three times enjoying his unadulterated popularity here L'lysses Grant was the first presidential visitor - arriving in 1875 not so many years after the transcontinental railroad linked Utah to the rest of the country He was met at the borders by George Emery the sixth governor appointed by Grant during his tenure as president But Brigham Young -perhaps the reason Grant went through governors like a child through candy - sent his own train as well The trains joined in Ogden Heath said and Grant and Young chatted as they rode south to Salt Lake City The visit must have been congenial as Grant reportedly then-territor- A cold Hayes hi Utah Utah next received a visit from Rutherford B Hayes in September 1880 “The best word for Hayes visit” Heath said “was cold absolutely cold” He spoke in public for perhaps two minutes Heath said By this time the nation had turned its attention to Utah and its odd mamage habits The president said Heath “had polygamy on his mind” and was not well-receiv- ed Three months later Hayes would declare “It is the recognized duty of the people of the United States to suppress polygamy m our territories" Three more presidents -James Garfield Chester Arthur and Grover Geveland - came and went before Utah saw its next presidential visitor Benjamin Harrison in 1891 His was the opposite of Hayes' unhappy visit Polygamy was no longer an issue - it'd been banned the previous year And Harrison was optimistic said Heath telling Utahns that statehood was imminent William McKinley promised to visit but he canceled after his wife became ill That was just as well as the only presidential candidate to earn more Utah votes than Reagan was William Jennings Bryant McKinley’s foe in 1896 Bryant won 82 percent of the vote in Utah - a record that remains unbroken First Tsbemada speaker The irrepressible Theodore Roosevelt showed up in 1903 As the first presidential speaker in the Salt Lake Tabernacle discussing the admirable qualities of the Mormon pioneers he set a standard for later visits Heath said Taft who at more than 330 pounds holds the record as our largest president visited Utah three times between 1909 and 1911 The only controversy that dogged Taft Heath said was his decision to speak in the Tabernacle on a Sunday morning Woodrow Wilson steamed into Salt Lake City in 1919 promoting the United States’ participation in the League of Nations He left the same day and the country never joined Warren G Harding had not yet been overcome by the Teapot Dome scandal when he visited Utah in 1923 He died five weeks later on this same Western trip of a supposed cerebral Utah not to visit but to attend the funeral of his friend and secretary of war George Henry Dem a former Utah governor His was the first presidential stopover that did not include a visit with the First Presidency of the Mormon Church Lyndon B Johnson made two visits - 2 the first in 1964a surprise stop to visit then-i- ll Mormon Church president David O McKay Johnson Nixon recorded two visits as well neither involving an overnight stay And Gerald Ford also made a several-hou- r layover here just' months after Nixon's resignation First plana visit Harry S Truman’s visit in marked another first: He arrived on a plane His reasons behind the visit were sentimental According to Heath “Salt Lake City was a place with deep meaning” - his grandfather had emigrated from Missouri to 1945 The Equal Rights Amendment was in full debate when Jimmy -" J I Carter stopped by in 1 978 to receive an award from the LDS 2 Church during National Family j Week Heath said He was the J f last president to speak at the Tabernacle j Utah Nearly 20 years passed before another sitting president made a call in Reagan the most popular president in Utah's history made' three visits including his locally j renowned 1982 stop at a picnic in I Hooper i George Bush only visited once as president to raise funds for t the Republican Party Utah John F Kennedy j at the Tabernacle and to start the new turbines at Flaming Gorge Dam His was a popular visit j massive crowds lined the streets - j ! j to wave as he drove by A famous photograph shows him ’ I' sitting in a convertible back dropped by the Salt Lake -LDS Temple - a foreshadowing i of the scene in Dallas just two months later hemorrhage - but that's a whole other story Calvin Coohdge refused to come wesL But Herbert Hoover did stopping to campaign in 1 932 amid the economic turmoil of the Great Depression Franklin D Roosevelt stopped in Kennedy stopped in September 1963 to speak I 'j he hanging out with? The Marx Warhol Brothers” That’s right j Chaplin was playing ! at Salt Lake City’s ! j Empress Theater at j the same time fellow 5 vaudevillian Groucho Marx was cutting up j ! audiences at the Orpheum The two ’ I From ID Salt Lake Cits Public Library Well into the evening South said someone mentioned that Zappa had earned a master's from Westminster No another piped up but he had taught there Said South “It just kept getting bigger and bigger We started listing all these alleged lsitors and with everyone there was a wild story - Chaplin wasn't even identified in a photo t that ran m a local met up after the show for newspaper I a night on the town Groucho headed to a local brothel j Chaplin followed But as related in Marx’s memoirs Chaplin was very shy ' and showed no interest in the girls “Instead” wrote Marx “he spent the entire evening lying on the floor playing with the madam’s English bulldog" ! On their way back to their hotels ash three cans j Chaplin spotted They then wrote Marx “spent most of the J night playing leapfrog over the cans for j nickels and dimes” attached" When a friend mentioned the whole topic would make a good book South in the lace of his comrade's incredulity took up the challenge “The interesting thing" South said in an interview “was when I woke up the next morning it still seemed like a good idea which usually isn't the case Usually if you come up with an idea m the bar don't do it - as a basic rule in J Van Gogh life" brush-b- y South even included the story of a artist who’d been dead j I for 50 years before his “visit" Vincent Van Gogh had been dead show of his j since 1890 when a one-ma- n paintings came to U tah in 1 94 j “1 had to include him because j although he didn’t come here a one-m- a show of his in Salt Lake City is a phenomenal thing" South said Van Gogh’s paintings had been trapped in the United States since the N azis’ invasion of Holland While waiting for World War II to be resolved the paintings toured the country ending up in the building that preceded the University of Utah’s current Art Bam The building had no security no e staff and Utahns in large numbers wandered in and out of the unlocked doors inspecting such famed works as Van Gogh’s and “Wheatfield With Skylark” “Now we could not afford to insure an exhibit like that” South said In fact the only facility in the country that can underwrite such a venture is the National Gallery of Art in Washington DG Coincidentally such an exhibit will open in October that said South “is a big event” Some of Utah’s painters saw the exhibit as children And “it flipped their switches" South said Among them was Utah artist Doug Snow “He didn’t even know who Van Gogh was but he said it had an amazing 1 Zappa’s influence world-renown- So South an art historian who's written widely on Utah’s art world began his research About half of the wild tales told at the bar were outright false he found the rest were half-trutHe had to throw out the Howard Hughes visit when he could find no documentation other than claims by small-towUtahn Dummar that the rich reclusive had passed through “That was tust word of mouth" South said "And as far as word of mouth everybody's been here from John Lennon to the ghost of everybody from Adolf Hiller to And he discovered Zappa did indeed have ties with Westminster but it wasn’t a matter of degrees Through the connection of Utah bom Tom Fowler the bass player in Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention Zappa presented a woikshop at Westminster in 1973 Although Zappa's stay was fairly short the workshop greatly influenced local musicians among them jazz musician Joe Muscolino That’s exactly what South looked for in his search for stones Lots of household-nam- e people - musicians and politicians who for instance make their living touring - have traveled through Salt Lake City But they left little behind and took with them only their paycheck South wanted to include only those celebrities who represented something more than a ticket pnce to ed 1 TIM South who is also the curator of the Utah Museum of Fine Here?” The book looks at some of the famous people who have visited Utah THE ANSWER IS NO Will n Art SCHOONStandard-Ewmme- at the University of Utah wrote “Andy Warhol Slept Utahns Kerouac not impressed so bad JFK: Popular not electable That’s a Utah notion that South hopes the book counters South's a native Californian but Utah’s been his home for 1 8 years He’s become tired of listening to Utahns mouth what’s become his “least favorite cliche": “We’re 15 years behind the times” Utahns South said “are harder on themselves than people outside of Utah The severest criticisms of Utah have always come from Utah” True some of these famous saw the state as “a passers-throug- h really bizarre outback” South said Chief among those is Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac Kerouac considered his bus trip through Salt Lake City as “something he had to endure” South said And when Salt Lake City shows up in his most famous work “On the Road” it’s described as “a city of sprinklers” But the fact that other famous visitors deliberately chose to travel to Utah indicates South said that the state’s not Charlie and Groucho Like John F Kennedy he said Lots of presidents have had stopovers here but none he said had quite the effect that Kennedy did Although Utahns heavily favored Richard Nixon over Kennedy in 1 960 Kennedy overlooked his loss and promised he’d visit And he did in September 1 963 - although South said "he had not a chance of wmning here in ’64” Still more people turned out for his visit than any other politician in the state’s history crowding the streets to glimpse his entourage and following him out to the airport What South likes about the episode is its contrast with the politics of today: “He was so civil and warm and friendly” Plus he said Kennedy’s visit reflected well on Utah - “and politically we’re not always in a good light” r Sarah Bernhardt the world’s most famous actress at the turn of the century debated her morality and the worthiness of the stage with a local evangelist on the front pages of a Salt Lake City newspaper m 1906 But rather than being offended she returned five years later to perform to an equally large crowd “Certainly that doesn't speak of an ill experience but just the opposite” South said South is particularly fond of Charlie Chaplin’s leapfrog stop in Utah The year was 1911 two years before he would become the world's most famous comedian But at the time South said “he’s just a kid in vaudeville And who’s one-roo- m ftill-tim- self-portr- effect" RUDOLPH VALENTImO: SUSANS ANTHONY: She was a world-famou- s suffragette V He was ' M r s husband to Utah-bor- n 4 Natacha Rambova CRSCN srcnna He performed “Macbeth at the HACTJS: His first Utah visit in 1993 drew more than mus University of Utah 10000 people 1 |
