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Show Pioneers left heritage of industry and independence To say that our state is proud of its pioneer heritage is an understatement. Indeed, the pioneer experience defined Utah's character by defining the character of the people who founded it and and who, through painstaking labor in often treacherous environments, cultivated the garden which has grown in this arid state. In fact, it was the inhospitable nature of the area which attracted the early pioneers. Those men and women were seeking a haven where early Mormon church members would be safe from persecution. The valley of the Great Salt Lake and its surroundings looked like the kind of the place that would provide security and peace because no one else would want it. Having chosen a home, the pioneers then went about the task of building a community with independence and industry as prime goals -- as is witnessed by the state symbol of the beehive. And they worked hard at it. Those early settlers included in-cluded many people of culture who put all of that behind them and suffered unimaginable hardship for the sake of religious freedom. Men and women who had owned fine homes in modern cities found themselves living in lean-to's with little food and inadequate shelter during the early years of settlement. set-tlement. Families would be sent to new, uncultivated areas as settlements were established throughout the state for the incoming pioneers -- all aiming at reaching the same goals. True, those goals proved to be more difficult to achieve than originally thought. First, the settlers were threatened with military action during the Utah War. Then the gold rmh railroad brought an influx of "gentiles" who rhannd the the traditions of the state's first settlers ailengej And throughout those first 60 years of settlemP Church leaders were locked in a perpetual bam the federal government over the practice of n 11 and the inevitable combination of church and t communities founded by families of a common h tT . But all these factors joined together to create with a personality all its own - a state of pioneers &kk It is a heritage of which this state can be pronri while the pioneer days are far in the past, those the early settlers of the state sought are still considering. Wortti Industry, of course, and independence from tvr of all sorts are worthy goals to consider as we honn pioneer predecessors this week. Ut |