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Show 1 2K The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday, July 15, 1384 137 yeasrs of SnssfoiricaS celeibiranosii When the crowds line the streets of Salt Lake City July 24 to watch the parade in honor of the arrival dent Youngs house. Horace S. Eldriuge served as marshall on horseback in the first parade in the Salt Lake Valley. The bands came next, followed by 12 bishops carrying the banners of their wards, complete with appropriate Inscriptions. Twenty-fou- r young men (one account of the celebration claimed there were 74 men in this section of the parade) dressed in white, with white scarfs on their shoulders and coronets on their heads came next Each one clutched a copy of the Declaration of Independence in his right hand, and a sheathed sword in hisleft Young women, dressed in white with white scarfs on their shoulders and a wreath of white roses on their heads, followed, carrying the Bible and the Book of Mormon. One of the men carried a banner which read Lion of the Lord, and one of the women carried one that proclaimed Hail to our Chieftan. The general authorities followed. Many others, including 24 Silver Greys completed the parade, which wended through the streets singing a hymn as the cannons roared, and the Nauvoo pell pealed. That first celebration set the pattern for those that have followed. In 1851, the Regents of the University of Deseret participated for the first time. The 10th celebration of the settlement was commemorated on the banks of Silver Lake at the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon, where three sawmills had provided lumber for a road over some of the area more impassable sections. About 3000 Utahns, specially invited by Young, attended. Six bands, about 500 vehicles, and 1,500 horses, mules and other animal transportation traveled up the canyon the . of the 148 Mormon pioneers 143 men, three women and two children in this valley 137 years ago, much will have changed.' More than a century has passed since a weary and ill Brigham Young looked out over the valley and announced, This is the place. Since that time, the residents of the area have celebrated that moment in local history almost every year. But the first anniversary of the arrival was different There was no celebration by the pioneers, who were still very hard at work carving a community in the often unrelenting land. According to torians, the first winter was a thankfully mild one, and the anniversary arrived and left without anything special to mark it That August the pioneers gathered to feast and give thanks for their crops, their homes, their very lives. July 24, 1849, the first Pioneer Days celebration occurred. Journal History offers what is perhaps the most reliable description of the event According to the document citizens were awakened by nine rounds of artillery, accompanied by martial music. Then brass and martial bands took turns playing as carriages carried them through the city. t At 7:30 a.m. a large national flag, 65 feet in length, was unfurled at the top of the Liberty Pole, and the playing of the bands, the firing of six guns and the ringing of the Nauvoo bell saluted it The citizenry gathered by 8 a.m. and at a quarter past the Presidency of the Stake, the Twelve, and at Presi the bands went to prepare the escort ... ' day before the celebration. Tents were set up around three boweries, and the night before the official celebration most of those attending spent the evening dancing. The next morning, picnics, music,, games and hiking were the order of the day. Other Utah communities were beginning to hold their own celebrations by 1861. Floats appeared on the scene in 1880, as part of the three-mil- e parade. And a pageant took place in the Tabernacle, completed 20 years after the pioneers arrival. With each passing year, the celebrations grew and new features were added. In 1897 the parade route was four miles long, and in 1910 $1500 worth fireworks were discharged on the hilltop where the Capitol Building now stands. Saltair was the site of all the festivities in 1922, as the residents of the area gathered to honor and entertain the survivors of the 1847 settling. For a time the annual event was called Utah Covered Wagon Days, and that name stuck until 1943, when it became the Days of 47, a name it has carried ever since. The new celebration was put in the charge of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers and the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, who signed an agreement to carry on the celebratory tradition. More recent additions to the fun have included the selection of a Days of 47 Queen, a rodeo, a territorial ball and many other grand events. 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