A Gauge of the Times: Ensign Peak in the Twentieth Century

The familiar dome shape of Ensign Peak rises to the left of the State Capitol in this 1964 U.S. Bureau of Reclamation photograph in USHS collections.

A Gauge of the Times: Ensign Peak in the Twentieth Century

BY RONALD W WALKER

Xo THE NORTH OF SALT LAKE CITY A ROLLING SPUR juts west from the normally north-south Wasatch range. There, on July 26, 1847, Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders climbed a little dome-shaped promontory and laid out Utah's capital city. They called their little mount Ensign Peak, a name that told of their religious mission. Their movement, after all, hoped to be a beacon or ensign for gathering the righteous prior to the last days. This familiar event, so often mentioned as part of the pioneer saga, had a sequel. During the past one hundred years Utahns have argued over how to use the peak—both as a cultural symbol and as a piece of real estate. In the process Ensign Peak has charted the changing moods of Utah's popular culture

The peak's latter-day story began with the fifty-year Pioneer Jubilee in July 1897 As its part of the celebration the Salt Lake Herald ordered a wooden flagpole put on Ensign Peak The newspaper had the help of the Signal Corps of the Utah National Guard, which after carefully surveying the spot, placed the pole in a direct line with Salt Lake City's Main Street. To complete the project a hermetically sealed pipe containing the names of helping donors and officials was buried somewhere on the summit.1

The venture exuded patriotism. "For the first time in 50 years, or thereabouts," the newspaper claimed, "'Old Glory' floated from the historic peak yesterday morning, just as the sun came over the peaks of the Wasatch, faintly tingeing the valley. . . ."2 After the completion of these ceremonies, the lowered flag was given to Gov. Heber M. Wells, who, it was hoped, would have it raised on the peak at all suitable future times. The Deseret News, a sister publication of the Herald, also sketched these events in terms of commonwealth and national allegiance The recent unfurling of the Stars and Stripes on Ensign Peak, it editorialized, was a "signal of peace, prosperity, happiness and loyalty."3

It is understandable why the Herald and its friends should cast the event in terms of patriotism At the time Utah had just ended its long and tortuous national conciliation Only the year before, Washington had made peace with its edgy and enigmatic territory and made her a state For their part, Utahns were eager to show their appreciation— and their Americanism Their ancestors had been driven from New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois and as a result had entered the Great Basin with badly splintered loyalties These early pioneers were more willing to affirm the ideals of America than the conduct of those Americans who had tormented them But such a distinction was lost on their children and grandchildren. The new generation wished to be known as loyal citizens—without qualification.

For these Utahns Ensign Peak was a patriotic symbol According to the traditions that they had inherited and wished to foster, Brigham Young's first party had raised the American banner during itsJuly 26, 1847, reconnaissance. This episode, so the story went, was the first American flag-raising in the Great Basin. The Mormons had thereby wrested Utah's soil from Mexican control and furthered the manifest destiny of the rapidly expanding United States. The Mormons, in short, had been loyal American empire builders.

These ideas—repeatedly put forward during the first decades of the twentieth century by boosters of Utah's past and future—were rejected with equal force by those disputing such claims This first "cultural war" over the meaning of Ensign Peak had its roots in the religious and political conflict of the time The turn-of-the-century Salt Lake Tribune, ever the curmudgeon to Mormon views, enthusiastically took on the issue In 1908 the newspaper noted the eagerness of its rival, the LDS-owned Deseret News, to accept uncritically the supposed Brigham Young, July 26, 1847, flag-raising. The only banner waved that day, according to the Tribune, was a "yellow bandanna decorated with black spots," which was attached to Willard Richards's walking cane. "That was the 'flag' that was first hoisted by the Mormon 'pioneers' in this valley," the Tribune claimed. To support itsview the newspaper quoted, without citation, no less a light than Heber C. Kimball.4

A black spotted, yellow bandanna, of course, was a considerable come-down from an empire-claiming, patriotic American flag. Two years later the Tribune returned to the refrain. The newspaper quoted an address of William C. A. Smoot, once a twenty-year-old member of the first pioneer party, made at a gathering of the anti-Mormon American party Smoot challenged the idea that prior to the coming of the Saints the Salt Lake Valley had been a barren desert He further challenged Mormon pulpit oratory by agreeing with the Tribune's earlier account of a boyishly waved, non-Arnerican-flag, a yellow bandanna, which at the time was meant to prefigure a scripture-fulfilling ensign, later to be lifted.5

By denying one of the increasingly accepted patriotic icons of the community, Smoot received the heavy scorn of the Salt Lake Herald Republican, often an ally of the Deseret News. The newspaper unfairly charged that Smoot was an "intense Mormon hater," who enjoyed "detailing the bitterest falsehood and railings against his former associates." He wished, the Herald-Republican continued, to rob the first settlers of their deserving "mead of praise." To be sure, Smoot had been an LDS bishop, a position he resigned after a dispute with church leaders. But his words in the intervening years had not been shrill—not at least until the Herald-Republicans editorial called them forth.6

The Mormons themselves were not united on the subject. Apostle Matthias F. Cowley upheld the traditional view. His biography of Wilford Woodruff, a member of the first Ensign Peak party, contained a paragraph that would muddle other Mormon accounts for the next several decades:

On Monday the 26th [1847], President Young and several brethren ascended the summit of a mountain on the north which they named Ensign Peak, a name it has borne ever since Elder Woodruff was the first to gain the summit of the peak Here they unfurled the American flag, the Ensign of Liberty to the world. It will be remembered that the country then occupied by the Saints was Mexican soil, and was being taken possession of by the Mormon Battalion and pioneers as a future great commonwealth to the credit and honor of the United States.7

Perhaps Cowley had data that no one else before or later has unearthed, and events took place just as he wrote. But LDS historian B. H Roberts, writing a decade later, wanted cold, hard, validating facts and could find none In an article entitled "The 'Mormons' and the United States Flag," Roberts complained that if the Brigham Young party had raised the American flag an on-the-spot diary surely would have recorded the event. Roberts concluded that the ensign of Ensign Peak was simply a literary metaphor for the Mormons' Gospel mission and bore no relationship to any flag whatsoever.8

Less than ten years later Roberts's voice was rising. With LDS spread-eagle oratory and faith-promoting sermons continuing, the historian was clearly vexed. Treating the Ensign Peak episode once more in his magisterial, six-volume survey of LDS history, his words became sharp The peak had neither timber nor brush to mount a standard, Roberts argued, and no evidence confirmed the nine men had carried with them a flag. He concluded that the proposition was "utterly impossible" and "unwarranted," a "pious fiction [that] lives on and on by the force of parrot-like iteration and re-iteration ad nauseam.''9

Roberts was not alone in insisting on what he believed was historical fact Assistant LDS historian AndrewJenson, in turn, was rankled by a detailed description of the supposed pioneer flag-raising, which in one retelling had great specificity. According to this account, three pioneers were dispatched to the peak at 6 A.M. on July 24, 1847—before Young had even arrived in the valley—to claim the Great Basin from Mexico Their supposed proclamation had a chiseled-in-marble quality.

In raising this flag upon this mountain, which we name Ensign peak, we take possession of this valley and of all the mountains, lakes, rivers, forests and deserts of this territory in the name of the United States of America and proclaim this land to be the American territory.10

Jenson wanted proof for such an extraordinary statement, with its "startling details." It could not be accepted from memory alone, he insisted, because of "the abundant documentary proofs" to the contrary. To this complaint he offered a postscript. "We historians have done our best to prove the correctness of such tales," he admitted. "We have failed and have long ago concluded that no such event took place. ... In the interest of true history, let us stick to facts and not assert things that we have to refute later."11

But the tide was irresistible. Despite the objection of Mormon historians the fabled version of the Ensign Peak flag raising continued to be told as far away as Georgia and by such dignitaries as United States senators.12 It was also told visually within the Utah Capitol rotunda The celebratory panels of Works Progress Administration artists Lee Greene Richards, Waldo Midgley, Gordon Cope, and Henry Rasmussen contain one scene depicting the Brigham Young party hoisting the American banner on the peak. One critic swallowed hard:

Tourists gaze upon it and are deeply impressed. The youth of Zion view it reverently, and returning to their school desks write about it with pride Why contend that the story is too good to be true? In this instance, truth may never overtake fiction. The radiant fancy of the poet and painter has eclipsed the historian's carefully considered opinion.13

Like the Pilgrims' Plymouth Rock, Ensign Peak had gained a life of its own Susa Young Gates, Brigham Young's talented and prolific daughter, was another catalyst She was aware of the historical proscriptions of Roberts and others but would have none of it. Defending her patrimony, Gates's KSL radio address, June 1, 1929, argued that after the pioneer leaders had ascended and named Ensign Peak, the Stars and Stripes flew from a pole raised by Wilford Woodruff. She cited Cowley as her source.

Later she was more cautious. Working on a biography of her father, Gates wrote several rough drafts that acknowledged the revisionism of "recent students," but she used careful phrases to retain her intent The United States flag or "its equivalent" had been flown on the peak either on the first day or "a little later," she now said In her view the Saints' allegiance to the United States was staunch Joseph Smith and Brigham Young never had "the least idea of leaving the country whose flag of freedom had floated over the[ir] homes and [in whose] victorious armies . . . [had] marched their own revolutionary sires. The land of America was Zion to these leaders and to their associates and friends—patriots and sons of patriots all."15 These passages were later cut when her severely reduced manuscript was published

There were several reasons why the mythic version of the flag-raising refused to die. First, for anxious Utahns hoping to mend fences with their fellow Americans it put to rest the nineteenth-century calumny of LDS disloyalty with compelling force. It told of a lifted ensign during the dramatic first moment of colonization and placed at front stage Mormon leaders, not subordinates But there was another reason. Despite the expert witness of Roberts and Jenson to the contrary, the legendary Ensign Peak flag-raising contained more than a kernel of truth. Recent probing into the documentary record suggests that the Mormon pioneers may have raised two distinctive flags on the peak. The first, an American banner, was hoisted not on July 26, 1847, but likely several weeks later. The second flag is more problematic. An emblematic church ensign, symbolizing the gathering mission of Mormonism, may have been lifted as part of Utah's first Pioneer Day celebration, July 1849. Ironically, the twentieth-century Ensign Peak history controversy produced a minor surprise. Patriotism, rather than expert opinion, proved to have the larger claim to truth.16

The dispute over the early flag-raising was not the peak's only twentieth-century cultural expression. More telling and widespread, Ensign Peak hosted popular ritual. Starting in 1916 and continuing off and on for two decades, Utahns honored the historic site by hiking to its summit, usually as part of the state's July 24 Pioneer Day rites

The Boy Scouts sponsored the first two celebrations with camp fires, games, flag-raisings, and talks by Roberts and Ruth May Fox, a member of the LDS Young Ladies General Board So successful were these pilgrimages that the boys and their leaders planned to make them an annual event.17

But they were preempted. Adults as well as youth wished to be involved. In 1918 a World War I patriotic rally included the oratory of LDS general authority and historian Orson F. Whitney, his stentorian phrases lightened by patriotic singing and by the music of the University of Utah's U.S. Military Training Detachment Band. Some 700 citizens attended.18

The next year boosters planned "one of the most unique and historic church celebrations in the history of the state." "Autoists" were told to drive their vehicles to the new State Capitol and then proceed up West Capitol Street to the coiling dirt road that led to the base of the hill. Pedestrians could take the Capitol Hill streetcar line and walk on the new "scenic boulevard"—perhaps today's East Capitol Boulevard. Boy Scouts helped make these instructions explicit by marking the trail with buffalo-head emblems, each with an Indian arrow pointing to the summit.19

The program was as detailed as the travel instructions. It included flag raising and Scout salute; community singing, "America" and "Come, Come, Ye Saints"; invocation; soprano solo, "O Ye Mountains High"; historical sketch, Andrew Jenson; address, Richard W Young; community singing, "The Star Spangled Banner"; benediction; and the viewing of the summer sunset A small organ carted to the top provided music

The address of World War I hero Gen. Richard W. Young, then president of the LDS Ensign Stake, was characteristic of the entire proceeding. He praised the pioneers and urged his audience to copy their example. But much of his talk reflected the era's sturdy national loyalty For fifty years, Young said, Ensign Peak had stood for Utah's patriotism. It was Utah's symbol of the national spirit and its love of country.20

Most of the annual celebrations that followed took place in the late evening with programs that included community sings, solos, campfires, games, flag-raising, and the usual watching of the summer sunset. Some of Utah's leading figures spoke. In addition to Roberts, Fox, and Young, audiences heard Melvin J Ballard, Heber J Grant, Richard R. Lyman, Nephi L. Morris, Oscar W. McConkie, George Albert Smith, and Anthony W. Ivins. Sometimes the evening's activity held an unexpected twist On one occasion the celebrants left the hill at nightfall, lighting their way with picturesque Japanese lanterns and singing as they went.21

With people trooping to Ensign Peak each year, hopes were kindled for some kind of memorial. As early as the turn of the century city boosters had campaigned for a commemorative park near or around the hill. In August 1908 Lon J. Haddock, secretary of the Manufacturers' and Merchants' Association, proposed that the city, which held title to the ground, franchise the area to private developers They in turn would make the needed improvements and gain a profit by charging for access. Haddock thought the Ensign Peak area, with its history and commanding view, could become a "sort of Mecca for Salt Lake tourists."22

The local newspapers agreed. The slopes of Ensign Peak deserved to be preserved, the Deseret News thought, as the scene of "one of the most remarkable events in American history"—an allusion apparently to Brigham Young's alleged flag-raising. Other Salt Lake City newspapers were equally enthusiastic. The Inter-Mountain Republican believed Haddock's proposed project would be an ornament to the city: "Every root of lawn, every mass of flowers, every tree [on the peak], would attract the attention and provoke approving comment from the people of Salt Lake." With such a plan in place, the newspaper predicted that a railroad to the summit was "inevitable." The Salt Lake Herald also joined the chorus. An Ensign Peak park was a "public necessity," it declared. Piping water to the summit would permit grass, shrubs, and trees, which would provide a "beautiful pleasure ground for all the people, rich and poor alike." The Herald was insistent: "Carry out the plans for Ensign Peak park, and do it now."23

For a while it seemed Ensign Peak and its neighborhood might harbor a forest. Several weeks after Haddock proposed his plan, U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot, recently returned from visiting Switzerland's managed forests, argued a similar policy for Utah The Deseret News immediately took hold of the idea and suggested the Ensign Peak area as a good place to start Utahns could sow hardy wildflowers on the top of the summit, while the sloping flat lands to the south might be planted with trees. Interested citizens had already begun offering funds for the project, the newspaper advised; now if only the sand and gravel diggers who were ripping at the west side of the hill could be restrained. The newspaper made a final suggestion that the city sponsor an annual children's Arbor Day for the peak. "When once the idea of reformation takes hold of the people and is made part of the work of the school children, the future of forests in this country will be practically assured," the News opined.24

None of these early plans materialized Eight years later Ensign Peak remained unchanged except for a new steel flagpole erected to replace the Herald's 1897 wood frame. But LDS Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley and his church had an innovative idea. In May 1916 he petitioned the city commission to permit the placing of a huge, concrete cross on the peak. The memorial, to be funded by the church, should be large enough to be "readily seen from every part of the city."25

It was an earnest time, given to good works and ideal symbols, and Bishop Nibley and his church saw the proposed cross as a progressive antidote to the city's growing social unrest. It would set the right moral tone, doing more, said one, than "all the drafting of statutes and ordinances, the preaching of sermons, or the publishing of newspapers can ever do in this city and state."26 But the Mormon church had another reason for suggesting the memorial Many visitors came to Salt Lake City believing the Mormons were not Christians. "The monument is intended as an insignia of Christian belief on the part of the Church which has been accused of not believing in Christianity," said the Deseret News.27 In short, the proposed cross would be good public relations

Nibley's plan met immediate opposition. The Reverend Elmer I Goshen of the First Congregational Church voiced his disagreement, while City Commissioner W. H. Shearman asked the question that many Salt Lake City citizens felt: How could a cross, a symbol never used by the Mormons, be more fitting than an unfurled American flag?28 Emil S Lund, a state legislator, expressed stronger objections His lengthy petition to the city commission attacked the plan, Mormonism, and even Christianity itself. "I fail to recognize where the cross has ever performed police duties," he wrote sarcastically. Nor was he pleased with any recognition of organized religion: "Christianity has failed, and a new era [is] coming, based upon material facts and the rights of humanity, upon which the cross of Christ has been a burden and obstruction of freedom." To these arguments, Lund added a constitutional complaint. The erection of a religious symbol on public property was a First Amendment violation, he believed.29 Rabbis William Rice and Samuel Baskin also entered the fight. Neither objected to a monument honoring the pioneers but opposed a religious symbol on public property They left their meeting with Commissioner Karl A Scheid, the most vocal supporter of the plan on the city commission, unmollified. If the plan went forward, the men warned, the city's "united spirit of citizenship" would be destroyed— carefully measured words that were meant as an obvious warning.30 Five years earlier the city had thrown off the anti-Mormon partisanship of the American party. Rice and Baskin hinted that if the plans for a public cross went forward the old fires might be rekindled.

With the proposal facing a determined opposition, Commissioner Heber M. Wells, the former state governor, offered Bishop Nibley some behind-the-scenes advice. Wells recommended the church carefully nudge the petition through the city commission by not urging it too strongly. Most of the commissioners were already favorably inclined, he believed.31 Wells was right. His colleague, Commissioner Scheid, expressed the view of the majority in city government: "The commission could trust the organization that had constructed the temple, the Hotel Utah, the [LDS] administration building and the tabernacle to construct a monument that would be a credit to the city."32 Neither Scheid nor the other commissioners seemed concerned about the legality of erecting a religious monument on public land At least they did not address the issue

On May 25, three weeks after Nibley introduced the plan, a listless city commission met to consider it. Wells could see no reason for prolonging things. According to the former governor, everyone had "his mind made up anyway." The desultory discussion ended with a 41 vote. Shearman, complaining the plan had caused enough trouble already, cast the sole negative vote.33

The commission's approval failed to mute opponents Back at his B'nai Israel congregation, Rabbi Rice signaled his continuing resistance He promised that although neither he nor his congregation would seek an injunction against the building of the cross, a number of citizens, "not all of whom are Jews," probably would do so. Among the prospective litigants was Emil Lund.34

The opposition was not confined to non-Mormons. A number of Nibley's own communicants disagreed with the church's policy. One anonymous LDS letter writer ("I want to live quietly and privately") complained about the chosen symbol: "If a righteous man unfortunately was crucified I fail to see why the Mormons should perpetuate this infamous death by building a cross on the Peak." He suggested the beehive or seagull as more appropriate commemorative tokens.35 His desire for anonymity was widespread. "Many of our good Mormon brethren have privately expressed to me their opposition," Wells reported in a letter to Nibley, "until I suggested that if they desired to make an argument against the proposition to please make it to you. Then they faded away."36 As always in such matters, some members were torn between religious compliance and personal feeling

Some LDS opposition was anti-Catholic, considering the cross to be papal One angry correspondent, who for once refused to be deferential, expressed "astonishment" at the church's position. "Bishop," he lashed out, "with all due respect to you and your intelligence, I do not hesitate to say to you, that you are either influenced by the Roman Church officials, or are ignorant of the moral turpitude of this same powerful influence, which seeks to dominate every institution in City, State, and Nation."37

James Z. Stewart, a devout churchman who had spent many years in proselyting in Catholic Mexico, also strongly opposed the scheme. "I have heard many Latter-day Saints express their disapproval of it, and I must say that I would regret very much to see it placed there," he wrote. For Stewart, like others, the rub was the symbol. Rather than a sign of true Christianity, he saw the cross as Romanish superstition or, worse still, the chilling, apocalyptic "sign of the beast" spoken of in the Book of Revelation.38 A multitude of appropriate pioneer symbols could properly adorn historic Ensign Peak, Stewart thought, "but the cross never."39

Even the parents' class of the influential LDS Twentieth Ward joined the controversy. After a "full and complete discussion," class members unanimously registered their "emphatic protest," which was conveyed in their written memorial. Perhaps a flag-topped obelisk bearing the name of Brigham Young would do. But authorities must not permit a cross on Ensign Peak's incline.40

Faced by the growing hostile tide, the church quietly dropped its proposal.

During the following years, other ideas for an Ensign Peak memorial surfaced One suggested a large sign on the hill saying "THIS IS THE PLACE," Brigham Young's aphorism, which perhaps could be blazoned in neon. 41 The 1934 Ensign Stake proposal was less flamboyant Its Mutual Improvement Association suggested a tower monument built of eight-to-twelve inch stones taken from the church's various units and historic sites. The latter, it was suggested, might include large rocks taken from such places as Joseph Smith's Sacred Grove near Palmyra, New York, the fabled temple lot from Independence, Missouri, and sites on the old Mormon pioneer trail.42

The Ensign Stake plan was elaborate It proposed that each stone mortared into the monument should be identified with a metal rivet—or failing that, perhaps a paper outline of each could be placed within the memorial On the outside or facade, the recently formed Pioneer Trails and Landmark Association promised a bronze plaque. John D. Giles, the PTLA executive secretary, thought the project would "doubtless be the greatest effort yet undertaken" by the fledgling association.43

The Salt Lake City Commission gave its sanction, while local architect George Cannon Young, a grandson of Brigham Young, provided the design. Most of theeighty main LDS church units complied by sending representative stones, though the Alberta, Canada, Stake,

either through misunderstanding or zeal, shipped an abounding one hundred pounds of material. Seven weeks after the project had been announced, masons put the first stone in place, taken from the old paper mill site at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon. A plinth of granite secured from the old Salt Lake Temple quarry served as a base. The entire monument was ready for dedication a week later. It stood a commemorative-fitting 18.47 feet in height, marking, of course, the year of the pioneers' arrival. Its squared foundation was presumably the same dimension.44

Five hundred attended the unveiling on July 26, 1934, and if newspaper reports of the services were accurate, Ensign Peak once more hosted pioneer and patriotic themes. George Albert Smith sketched the history of the first trek to the summit; Anthony W. Ivins, counselor in the LDS First Presidency, recalled his youthful visits to the area when he dug sego lilies for scant nourishment; and Mormon President Heber J Grant reminisced about early Salt Lake City days when Main Street was scarcely more than a "cabbage patch."45 The Reverend John Edward Carver of Ogden provided the non-LDS counterpoint As the main speaker of the day, Carver continued the praise of pioneer virtue. Unlike the nineteenth-century trader and hunter, Utah's settlers had made homes and had transformed the Salt Lake Valley into the "most beautiful city in the world." Carver closed by urging LDS youth to continue the Mormon epic.

Then, with a full moon rising over the eastern mountains, the program closed with the singing of pioneer songs and the lowering of the American flag to the strains of "America."46 "It was very hard climbing [to the top]," said seventy-seven year old Grant after the experience. "But I thoroughly enjoyed the evening's entertainment."47 Apparently several flagpoles were put in place after the building of the Ensign Stake's memorial. In the late 1930s and early 1940s a tall, three-pillared pole rose on the mount, replaced later by a single post erected by the LDS Emigration Stake. In turn, in 1955 the 115th Engineers of the Utah National Guard prepared the foundation for yet another flag tower. Their blasting literally shook parts of the city and brought a flurry of worried phone calls Then twenty volunteers from the Salt Lake City Fire Department and the Utah Power and Light Company lugged the new 700-pound, 40-foot pole to the summit, which was dedicated in a special Veterans' Day Service in honor of LTtah's servicemen.48 Thereafter, Guardsmen designated six annual events when they planned to fly the flag from the peak: Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Pioneer Day, and Veterans' Day.49

While many continued to honor the spot, others were less respectful. Two years after the monument's dedication vandals fired thirty rifle shots into the bronze marker that had been attached on the south side of the stone monument "Many of the letters appear damaged. Too bad," disparaged a letter to the Deseret News. In succeeding years the marker was stolen, while still later the new flagpole was vandalized When members of the United Veterans Council hiked to the top of Ensign Peak to place a bronze plaque on the pole they found that pranksters had battered its locks and partially cut its cable. Both had to be replaced "Youngsters are only hurting themselves when they damage an American flagpole," one of the veterans lamented. "It's their flag that flies from that pole." Such destructive acts became commonplace to the poles and memorial on the summit.50

There were other indignities. From the start of the century businessmen had tried to exploit the promontory "An automobile at the top of Ensign Peak!" began a 1910 newspaper article. "That was where a Velie '40' was Tuesday, and no other car had been there before which simply proves that to a good, reliable car there is no such word as 'can't.'" Not to be outdone, two weeks later the picture of a competing automobile also appeared in the newspaper. Said the supporting caption: "A great deal of excitement was caused the past week when the Randall-Dodd Automobile company drove a model 10 Buick to the top of Ensign Peak. ... A year ago it was thought an impossibility to drive a car up the steep incline, but machines are made so perfect nowadays that hills do not prove much of an obstacle for the average driver."51 The gimmick was successful enough to bring another imitator. A Thor motorcycle with a passenger in a sidecar made it to the peak's flagpole in 1916 "An impossible feat for any previous motorcycle" was the boast.52

More disturbing, members of the Ku Klux Klan used Ensign Peak to further their purposes. Despite the on-going opposition of LDS and most Utah civic leaders to their cause, Klansmen in 1925 staged a nighttime Washington's Birthday recruiting parade in the capital city The event was heralded by a suddenly appearing, burning cross on Ensign Peak. Then a cavalcade of hooded and robed Klansmen, estimated to number several hundred, wove its way through downtown Salt Lake City.

Two months later an even more dramatic KKK event unfolded. On the evening of April 6, 1925—a date chosen to coincide with influx of visitors to the semiannual Mormon General Conference—startled Salt Lake City citizens once more saw Ensign Peak aglow, this time with several large KKK crosses that were starkly visible throughout the valley. Beneath these fiery tokens on the semi-level flats below, "thousands" of Klansmen met that evening in a formal Konklave. The ceremony centered around two altars, about five hundred yards apart, where induction into the Klan's various orders took place. A circular sentry line of Klansmen, estimated to be a mile long, gave anonymity to the participants and their parked automobiles.

A KKK spokesman pronounced Utah's first Konklave to be "in every way a great success." It certainly seemed so In addition to the assembled Klansmen, hundreds and perhaps thousands of Utahns watched the event on the Ensign Peak downs, just beyond the KKK pickets, while still more observed from the valley. The "pageantry, mysterious garb, mystical ritual, fiery crosses, billowing flag displays, and martial music presented a spectacular sight," a historian of the Klan later wrote. To be sure, the nocturnal ceremony had an effect. For the next several days Salt Lakers were "talking Klan and thinking Klan," though the movement never established deep or long-lasting roots in the state.53

The Klan was not the only organization to use Ensign Peak Salt Lake City's West High School used its slopes to place timbers in an "W" configuration; the wood was periodically burned when the school had a special celebration And rumors circulated that Mormon Fundamentalists secretly used the place. Denied entry to LDS temples, so the story went, these LDS dissenters recalled Brigham Young's 1849 consecration of Ensign Peak for prayer and the endowment ceremony and performed such ordinances there themselves.54 A mysterious flag, flown from the peak six months after the start of the Second World War, seemed to lend credence to these rumors. This banner—probably a Fundamentalist standard—had thirteen red and purple stripes and a dark blue canton containing forty-eight, seven-pointed gold stars and a larger, truncated gold star in the middle bearing the insignia "United Israel of America." Arnry officials confiscated it from the local police for "investigation," and in the excitable spirit of the time cryptically refused to comment on the "possibilities of the flag's designer and what it stood for."55

Commercial interests also tried to use Ensign Peak for their purposes. One business hoped to put several large, electric advertising signs on the crest of the hill. The city commission rejected this proposal. Then an oil refining company returned with a new proposal, thinly disguised as a public service project The company promised to build a huge, flashing billboard on the summit that would encourage safe driving, asking only to prominently feature its trademark and name on the sign.56

These efforts raised several important questions. What was the best use of Ensign Peak land? Should commercial development or historic preservation receive the highest priority? The answers were not always environmentally sensitive. During the latter part of the twentieth century sand and gravel companies continued to gnaw at the mount's western slope Moreover, some traffic planners hoped to construct a multilane "Bonneville Drive," which, if built, would require deep and scarring cuts on the west and south sides of the hill or a three-mile tunnel burrowed near the peak Southbound Davis County traffic, they explained, needed better access to Salt Lake City.57

For a moment there was even talk of mining ore on the peak. During the uranium boom of the 1950s one prospector who claimed to hold mineral rights to some of the area hoped for a big strike. "We've had some determinations," he said The ore "is there, but we don't know in what quantity or quality."58 Such expansive rumors had a precedent During the nineteenth century gold miners had pocked the hill with exploratory caverns and left tailings scattered across the hillside. Even the remnant of a cart road, used to take their mining machinery to the northern bench, remained visible.59

During World War I officials had tried to extract another kind of resource from the Ensign Peak bench. As City Commissioner Herman H. Green explained in June 1917: "In the present war situation, with increased food production a crying demand, I think it would be a little short of criminal to allow the [Ensign] flat to remain idle when it will produce grain." To carry out the enterprise, Green secured the "expert opinion" of University of Utah President John A. Widtsoe, the loan of a state tractor, and several "gang plows" to aid the machine powered machinery They city expected that 20,000 bushels of turkey red wheat could be dry farmed on 1,500 acres below the summit.60

None of the efforts had a permanent effect on the landscape. By the early 1950s the land north of the State Capitol remained largely intact—a "barren, wind-swept hill country" reserved for the eventual creation of a city park That at least was the repeated hope of several city officials. But such a prospect was threatened by growing land values. "The same topographic advantages which gave the peak area its historical significance have long drawn covetous glances from real estate men who know a good subdivision site when they see one," observed the Salt Lake Telegram. Indeed, the area promised to be "one of the most magnificent residential areas of the country."61

With such a valuable asset on their hands city officials equivocated. By 1952 Salt Lake City badly needed a new water purification plant in City Creek Canyon, and until one could be built the area was closed to recreation. Perhaps the Ensign flats land might be sold to finance City Creek water development, which in turn would reopen one of the area's old picnic spots. "What finer parting gesture could Ensign Flats make than to help out a fellow 'old-timer' in trouble," the Telegram thought.62

Evidently this rationale persuaded the city commission to act. It sold several hundred acres of the land immediately below Ensign Peak to a group of Salt Lake City businessmen in an uncompetitive sale, which at the time rankled the Salt Lake Real Estate Board, the Utah Home Builders Association, and the Chamber of Commerce. 63 In later years the move equally angered preservationists, who censured the controversial deal as a breach of the city's long-standing aim of placing a park on the north bench.

For its part, the city claimed a memorial was still in its plans—if not on the recently sold land, at least on the summit There, officials promised, "something really splendid" would be worked out, with access routes and observation facilities for a "fitting monument." The proposed park would celebrate history and at the same time offer a vantage point of "unmatched beauty and inspiration."64 A half-dozen years later the National Guard seemed ready to help. As a training exercise it offered to build a road to the top of the peak that would open its "scenic and tourist" resources Such a scheme, predicted the Salt Lake Tribune, "would prove quite an attraction."65

Those hoping to preserve the land were unsure of the city's resolve. This historical site must never be used for "commercial or for mercenary purposes," the Sons of the Utah Pioneers insisted. "It must be developed into a beautiful and sacred shrine where visitors may be made acquainted with the purpose for which it was dedicated."66 To ensure such a result, Wilford C Wood, a Bountiful furrier and historical collector, offered to buy Ensign Peak in 1955, but the city declined The "land atop Ensign Peak is destined to become a city park," Park Commissioner L. C. Romney once more affirmed.67

In the early 1960s an ambitious plan for a "memorial, public pavilion, information center, and outstanding landmark" rivaling the "This Is the Place" Monument was drawn by Salt Lake architect Roger M. Van Frank and received the support of such community boosters as Nicholas G. Morgan, Sr. The blueprint called for the surface of the summit to be paved with a giant concrete observation deck on which an "ultra-modern" building would be placed Its roof, explained Van Frank, was designed to mark the exact crossing of the pioneer east-west, north-south meridians that had begun the nineteenth-century Utah land survey. Others attributed still greater significance to the location. "It would honor the spot where Brigham Young made his final decision to settle the valley," reported the Deseret News, "where some people believe the Mormon leader may actually have made his famous remark, 'This is the place.'" Unfortunately, this project, like the various ideas for an Ensign Peak park, died due to the lack of community support.68

Thirty years later the promise remained unfulfilled. A joint resolution of the Utah State Legislature called for the preservation of the area, and the current developer, Ensign Peak Incorporated, traded over sixty acres to the city to permit the building of a parking lot at the base of the peak and a hiking trail to the crest To assist this work a citizen's foundation was organized. It quickly abandoned the old ideas of a summit-climbing automobile road and the construction of a large memorial on the top Instead, foundation and city officials spoke of a nature and history walk that would allow future Utahns and tourists to savor Ensign Peak in a state similar to that of 1847.69 To initiate these plans the foundation once more sponsored Pioneer Day community hikes reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s The July 26, 1993, ceremony included LDS General Authorities Gordon B. Hinckley and Loren C. Dunn, Salt Lake City Councilwoman Nancy Pace, and state legislator Frank Pignanelli Crowd estimates ranged as high as 1,400. The new development was scheduled for the state's 1996 centennial celebration.70

Whatever its future, Ensign Peak has already played an important role in the history of Salt Lake City and the wider Utah community During the twentieth century it had pitted religious traditionalists and historians. Later, during its Christian cross controversy, the peak had briefly set at odds Mormon leaders and unmalleable followers. Still later, it put commercial boosters and preservationists in opposition to each other. Through all these twists and turns Ensign Peak, as symbol and site, has conveyed aspects of Utah's popular culture.

NOTES

Dr Walker is professor of history and senior research associate, Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History, Brigham Young University.

1 Salt Lake Herald, July 25, 1897, pp 2, 6; Deseret Evening News, July 24, 1897, as quoted in the Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City [hereinafter JH]; and "Reminiscence of Albion W. Caine,"July 31, 1961, copy in author's possession. The editorial of the Deseret News is not found in current microfilm runs of the newspaper.

2 Salt Lake Herald, July 25, 1897, p 2; Deseret Evening News, July 24, 1897, as cited in JH.

3 Deseret Evening News, July 24, 1897, as cited in JH.

4 Salt Lake Tribune, November 19, 1908, p. 4.

5 Salt Lake Tribune, March 18, 1910, p 2.

6 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, March 23, 1910, sec 1, p 4; W C A Smoot, "Bishop Smoot's Trenchant Reply," Salt Lake Tribune, March 27, 1910, p 12 Smoot may have lost his LDS moorings, but candor in this case seems to have been mistaken for enmity. For further information on the man see Salt Lake Evening Telegram, July 26, 1913, p 6, and "William Cockhorn Adkinson Smoot," in Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1957-77) 2:557-58.

7 Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff: History ofHis Life and Labors (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1909), p 316.

8 B H Roberts, "The 'Mormons' and the United States Flag," Improvement Era 25 (November 1921): 5 Also see B H Roberts, "The Oration," In Honor of the Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Bureau of Information, 1921), pp 24-25.

9 B H Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1930), 3:271-79.

10 AndrewJenson, "Historian Gives Account of Ensign Peak," Salt Lake Tribune, August 1, 1931, p. 4.

11 Ibid.

12 Atlanta Georgian, February 17, 1908, as cited in Roberts, Comprehensive History, 3:272-73; and Deseret Evening News, November 4, 1911, p 31.

13 Mark A Pendleton, "Ensign Peak," p 1, MS, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City.

14 Susa Young Gates, Brigham Young: Patriot, Pioneer, Prophet: Address Delivered Over Radio Station KSL, Saturday, June 1, 1929 (Salt Lake City?, n.d.), p 10.

15 These passages consistently appea r in the various preserved drafts of chap 9, Susa Young Gates Papers, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

16 Th e question of the Ensign Peak flag-raising is treated in Ronald W Walker, "'A Banner Is Unfurled': Mormonism's Ensign Peak," forthcoming, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Two me n claimed to have been present when the American flag was hoisted; see Joh n P Wriston, 'Th e Book of the Pioneers," unpublishe d miscellany collected by the Utah Semi-Centennial Commission, 1897, Utah State Historical Society, p 344, an d "Remarks of Harrison Sperry," Deseret News, August 14, 1920, sec 4, p vii A tattered American flag that some claimed had bee n flown o n the peak in 1847 was displayed forty-one years later; see Deseret Evening News, July 25, 1888, p 2 For the possible flying of the distinctive Mormo n flag see Franklin D Richards Diary, July 21, 1849, an d Charles Benjamin Darwin, "Journal of a Trip across the Plains from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Francisco,"July 1849, Huntingto n Library, San Marino, California.

17 Deseret Evening News, July 27, 1916, p 2; Salt Lake Tribune, July 27, 1916, p 14.

18 Deseret Evening News, July 23, 1918, p. 2.

19 Deseret Evening News, July 19, 1918, sec. 4, p. vii, and July 25, 1919, sec. 2, p. 2.

20 Deseret Evening News, July 28, 1919, p 3; Improvement Era, September 1919, pp 1015-16.

21 These events were reported in the Salt Lake City newspapers usually a day or two after the event For Japanese lanterns see Deseret News, July 25, 1922, sec 2, p 1.

22 Deseret Evening News, August 8, 1908, p 4.

23 Ibid,: Salt Lake Inter-Mountain Republican, August 10, 1908, as cited in JH; and Salt Lake Herald, August 9, 1908, p. 4.

24 Deseret Evening News, September 16, 1908, p. 4.

25 Deseret Evening News, May 5, 1916, p 2.

26 Karl A Scheid as quoted in Deseret Evening News, May 9, 1916, p 5.

27 Deseret Evening News, May 5, 1916, p 2.

28 Deseret Evening News, May 9, 1916, p 5.

29 Emil S. Lund to the Board of City Commissioners, May 10,1916, copy in Charles W. Nibley Papers, LDS Church Archives.

30 Salt Lake Tribune, May 23, 1916, p. 14.

31 Heber M. Wells to Charles W. Nibley, May 19, 1916, Nibley Papers.

32 Salt Lake Telegram, May 25, 1916, sec. 2. p. 1.

33 Salt Lake Telegram, May 25, 1916, sec. 2. p. 1.

34 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, May 27, 1916, p. 4.

35 To Charles W Nibley, May 9, 1916, Nibley Papers.

36 Wells to Nibley, May 19, 1916.

37 Charles Lerane? to Charles W Nibley, May 13, 1916, Nibley Papers.

38 Revelation, chaps 13-14.

39 J Z Stewart to Charles W Nibley, May 30, 1916, Nibley Papers.

40 A T Christensen, "Supervisor," to Charles W Nibley, June 14, 1916, Nibley Papers.

41 Junius F Wells, "Brigham Young's Prevision of Salt Lake Valley," Deseret News, December 20, 1924, Christmas News Section, p. 60.

42 Deseret News, May 23, 1934, p 9.

43 Ibid.

44 Salt Lake Tribune, July 27, 1934, p. 20; Salt Lake Telegram, July 17, 1934, p. 12; and Deseret News, July 19, 1934, pp. 9, 11.

45 Deseret News, July 26, 1934, p. 9, and July 27, 1934, pp. 13, 20; Salt Lake Tribune, July 26, 1934, p. 20.

46 Deseret News, July 26, 134, pp. 13, 20; Salt Lake Tribune, July 26, 1934, p. 20.

47 Heber J. Grant Diary, July 26, 1934.

48 Deseret News and Telegram, November 8, 1955, p 2B.

49 Deseret News, May 7, 1957, p 12.

50 C V Hansen in Deseret News, October 21, 1936, p 4 In 1992 the original plaque was found supposedly in a West Jordan, Utah, chicken coop. See Deseret News, LDS Church News Section, October 17, 1992, pp. 4, 7.

51 Salt Lake Tribune, March 10, 1910, p 4, and March 27, 1910, p 18.

52 Deseret Semi-Weekly News, May 4, 1916, p. 3.

53 Larry R Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1982), pp. 104-9.

54 Franklin D Richards Diary, July 23, 1849, LDS Church Archives Immediately after Young's dedicatory prayer, Addison Pratt, already called to a South Seas LDS proselyting mission, received his endowment on the peak The tradition of other LDS endowments being performed there during the nineteenth century is preserved in the Deseret News, July 24, 1897, p 9.

55 Salt Lake Tribune, June 4, 1941, p. 13.

56 Salt Lake Tribune, March 25, 1952, p 9, and December 7, 1952, sec C, p 10.

57 Deseret News, March 14, 1974, p 2B, and April 24, 1974, p 2D The length of the proposed tunnel, later shortened, proved too costly to build and the scheme was abandoned.

58 C L Singleton in Salt Lake Tribune, March 30, 1956, p 8B.

59 James Aitken, Erom the Clyde to California with Jottings by the Way (Greenock, Scotland: William Johnston, 1882), p 55.

60 Salt Lake Telegram, June 29, 1917, 2d sec, p 10.

61 Salt Lake Telegram, June 11, 1952, p. 12, and March 18, 1953.

62 Salt Lake Telegram, June 11, 1952, p. 12.

63 Deseret News and Telegram, March 18, 1953, p 12A.

64 Ibid.

65 Salt Lake Tribune, October 21, 1959, p 20.

66 "Brigham Young Foresaw Mount Ensign," Pioneer 5 (July-August 1953): 16-17, 50.

67 Salt Lake Tribune, July 13, 1955, p 25.

68 Deseret News, December 15, 1962, B7 The plan included a "perpetuating fund" for the future upkeep of the memorial.

69 Deseret News, LDS Church News Section, October 17, 1992, pp 4, 7.

70 Salt Lake Tribune, July 27, 1993, p. B3; Deseret News, July 27-28, 1993, and LDS Church News Section, July 31, 1993, pp 3, 6.