Utah - This is the Place

good evening ladies and gentlemen this is Jack Douglas the history of the American West is full of phrases that will live forever among the most famous of these are the words attributed to the great Mormon leader Brigham Young looking out over the desert Wilderness that later became Salt Lake City he said this is the place well time was to prove Brigham Young right and if you as a vacationer decide on Utah for your next holiday I think that you too will say this is is the place when you visit Salt Lake City the capital of Utah this is what you will see a sprawling Metropolis nestled in a green and fertile Valley but to appreciate what we will see we must rely on paintings to show us what the Salt Lake Valley was like before the Mormon migrations before 1847 Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormon Church did not live to see his people established in the Utah territory persecuted Beyond imagination he was arrested and murdered by mob violence in an Illinois Jail born in Vermont Smith was raised in New York state and his church was organized in fet New York in 1830 and now Smith and his followers were to know the meaning of those two menacing words keep moving they moved to Missouri and were driven out they moved to Illinois built a thriving City and were driven out and finally in 1846 16 years after the founding of the church by Smith the final migration began the search for the promised land a land where they could live and worship according to their beliefs by now the great Brigham Young had assumed the leadership of the murdered Smith and history was to record this astounding Journey as your step in the opening of the west then in July of 1847 the Pioneers reached the burning desolate Salt Lake Valley and incredible as it seems Brigham Young gave the order this is the place commemorating this historic occasion the people of Utah erected the This Is The Place Monument shown here in 1947 at the mouth of Immigration Canyon just outside the city the central figure is Brigham Young and incidentally his exact words were it is enough this is the right place drive on fun well this is Salt Lake City today a pleasing blending of the old and the new like most western cities its growth has been booming in recent years so if it doesn't look exactly like this when you visit the city you'll understand why but Temple Square never seems to change the dominating edifice is the temple built by the early Pioneer Artisans the temple is used for baptisms marriages and other sacred or ordinances of the church and non-mormons are not permitted inside the next most imposing structure on Temple Square is the famed Mormon Tabernacle home of the Mormon choir and the scene of daily organ recital open to the public without charge this is the base of the best known monument in Temple Square the seagull monument and to understand the significance of this slender column we must again go back to 1848 the Pioneers had planted their first crops but before the crops were harvested they were threatened by a plague of crickets miraculously hordes of Seagulls descended upon the Crickets save the crops and almost certainly save the Mormons from starvation a likely story it's true all right and in grateful Rememberance the Mormons conceived this Memorial column the seagull Motif is everywhere even as a striking ornamentation for this modern office building in the downtown district these sightseers are Mrs John beet her daughter Mrs James Bridges and her two daughters all from White Marsh Maryland Salt Lake City has many well-groomed residential areas and thousands of attractive homes but this is the most famous house in the city in the state briam Young's B house built by Young a few years after the settlement in Salt Lake Valley the eagle Gateway added a few years later is adorned with the American Eagle a top of beehive The Beehive being the state emblem of Utah Beyond this ordinary gate in the shade of trees that were not here during his lifetime is the grave of Brigham Young a prophet to his people a Statesman to the outside world a rugged Pioneer respected for his work in the Utah territory the Simplicity of the grave site surprises most visitors the majority of whom are not Mormons and I'll admit I was surprised at seeing no immense statuary no elaborate ornamentation to honor so great a historic figure just an iron picket fence and an ordinary slab and yet almost hundred years after Young's death people from all over the world care enough to stop here and pay their respects the Great Salt Lake just a few minutes from the city is unquestionably Utah's best known natural wonder now the size of the lake varies with the water level but it's estimated to average 1,500 square miles much too big to explore in a matter of minutes but we can take a few moments to join theseal Utah Beauties on a short Excursion ride aboard a colorful craft with the owner Bob silver calls the sea monster of Sunset Beach well the sea monster doesn't frighten anybody but Bob admits that he's tired of being asked yeah man but will it fly no man it won't fly but it's right at home in water as on dry land having anchored a few hundred yards from Shore our two beauties agree to demonstrate the buoyancy factor of the Great Salt Lake the salt density is 20 to 25% second only to the Dead Sea in the entire world and as a result of this heavy salt content it's impossible for a swimmer to unwillingly sink you don't even have to dog paddle or use your arms to float fact is you can let your body go limp and read a magazine now if you were to drop a hardboiled egg in ocean water the egg would sink but here at the Great Salt Lake the egg will float at the surface another attraction inside the city limits is Pioneer Village on Connor street now this Village never really existed as such it's actually a composite of what a Pioneer Village looked like in the Utah of a hundred years ago daily a team of oxen take visitors mostly youngers for a ride in a covered wagon it's not a smooth ride even on level ground but it demonstrates to these youngsters far better than words what it must have been like for Pioneers to travel 500 or a th000 miles in similar wagons and the ride is so jarring that the youngsters don't even mind being summoned to school by an oldfashioned School mm the real covered wagons of pioneer days were quite large they had to be for they were literally houses on wheels and you can almost hear these youngsters thinking aloud gee did people really live in those things for months and months and months yes son they did indeed the Pony Express is also represented here and in the Village Square is an imposing statue changing of the writers dedicated to the men of one of the most unusual mail delivery systems the world has ever never known the Pony Express also had a way station at Camp Floyd in Fairfield Utah and the Old Stage Coach Inn is well preserved and the visitors that we see approaching it now are Mr and Mrs Don Reynolds of St Joseph Missouri well here's what a real stage coach in looked like a far cry from what we've seen in Hollywood and TV westerns you'd never expect to see a spinning wheel in a stage coach in but the hours in between stage arrivals were quite long and the family of John Carson the man who built the Inn could not afford to stay idle fresh rainwater was dled out from the rain barrel and hot water for bathing and cooking boiled in this huge copper vat and this was the community bathtub organ music and not dancing girls was just about the only entertainment at this authentic and his toric stage coach in the organist is Mrs Myrtle Erikson who with her husband serves as custodian at the in this today is All That Remains of Camp Floyd in Fairfield yet in its Heyday this Army Post was the largest military installation in America beyond the mountain ranges Beyond Utah's few big cities the sightseer will find a delightful small town atmosphere that's typified by the Strawberry Days festival in Pleasant Grove a gigantic parade that's how the Chamber of Commerce advertised it is merely the start of 3 days of carnivals rodeos and barbecues now it's not the Marty gr or New York's Easter Parade but these youngsters and their fam it's the biggest event of the Year being one of the judges is a good way to risk losing friends well here's the happiest girl in town the queen of the Strawberry Festival Utah is dotted with places like Pleasant Grove farming hamlets mostly farmers who work from sun up to sun down to force a Sandy reluctant soil to produce Bountiful crops but this kind of a life does have its complications how many youngsters for example have a horse they can call their very own and how many of us can look up and see Skies splashed in color and flooded with rainbows we look look back at the central figure in this Monument to Brigham Young and his farsighted Vision his prophetic words this is the place apart from historic Salt Lake City what does Utah offer the sightseer well simply this quite probably it has more major well-known national parks called The Monuments if you wish than any other Western State for example look closely at what appears to be a part of the Grand Canyon in Arizona but it's not this is Utah's Canyon lands country a mighty Gorge created by the San Juan River Zion National Park in southern Utah covers an area of 147,000 acres and once we're inside the entrance Mother Nature becomes a showof the eser zti and Don Valente both from Detroit take snapshots of a rock formation known as The Fortress another out of stator is missan Holdridge of Huntington Park California Susan was here during school vacation working as a cashier at the Zion Park innn well this is her afternoon off and Wrangler Dwayne r brouch will guide around a horseback Jaun to a peak called Angel's Landing now this guided round trip to the landing covers 5 miles and roughly 5 hours there are many trips like it and these daily trips are arranged through the Zion Lodge or the in they're inexpensive and are they worth it well you be the judge as we follow with our cameras we're looking at a rim of Provo Canyon near Provo Utah and from that structure at the peak we look down on bridal veil Falls the bridal veil of an Indian Maiden who on the night of her elopement according to Legend was forced to LEAP to her death by Braves of her own tribe in addition to bridal veil Falls there is a Tramway no not just another Skyride but the steepest aerial Tramway in the world because from the highway to the Canyon Rim you you'll travel 1753 ft in 3 minutes at a 45° angle you have to try it to believe it you know you're going up but you wonder what stops the Gondola from sliding back at the top there's a large Penthouse that features dining and dancing in the evenings but in the daytime you'll be Spellbound by space and distance how far well it's like being able to see Washington DC from the top of the Empire State Building in New York if America is over crowded you'd never know it traveling west of the Mississippi Bryce Canyon National Park also in southern Utah is 56 square miles of Fantasia Rock sculptures resembling miniature cities Cathedral spires and whatever your imagination chooses here at Bryce nature took her time 60 million years were needed to shape these formations and paint them in soft pink red orange blended with touches of cream lavender and pale yellow still in southern Utah make Lake Powell a must on your list now this is the man-made lake filling in behind the Glen Canyon d and chances are that when you get to Lake Powell much of what you see in these pictures will be underwater such as this Cactus near the shore or these full grown trees which by now can be seen only by skin divers these Indian carvings petroglyphs are also Vanishing just as the Waters of the Nile at Aswan Dam have flooded over much of Egypt's ancient landmarks completely filled Lake Powell will be 10 86 Mi long and 7 m wide at its widest point it will be one of the most impressive boating swimming and Fishing Resort areas in America one look at these monoliths is enough to identify Monument Valley the heart of the Navajo Indian Reservation now this isn't the kind of National Park you can whiz through in a matter of hours because Monument Valley consists of 1,500 square miles of breathtaking terrain most of it spilling over into Northern Arizona the navajos are a proud Nation skilled in rug weaving as we know and in the making of silver jewelry now there are true desert people who have adapted to their environment as easily as the beduins of Middle Eastern countries they're accustomed to sightseers and you'll find them a gentle and hospitable people Utah like Arizona and New Mexico has many Indian Ruins but these are the best preserved in the state this is the prehistoric peblo at Hoven weep National Park the sightseer is Mr John heffernon a teacher at Cortez High School in Colorado the inhabitants of hovenweep during the centuries between 400 ad and 1300 ad were peaceful Indian Farmers constantly under attack by Apache and other Waring Indian tribes well this Watchtower was just one of the defensive means they employed to protect themselves their crops and their precious Spring Water Arch's National Monument is located in central eastern Utah about 3 miles from Moab and not too far from the Colorado border and doesn't this profile of a face remind you of those Easter Island sculptures it's called Indian chief Rock naturally this one had to be named Balanced Rock and the three gossips these are the best kind they can't whisper a word Devil's Garden is a small section of Arch's Monument about 8 mil from Balanced Rock it has numerous interesting formations but here is the pride of the garden the landscape Arch believed to be the longest Natural Stone Span in the world Split Mountain Gorge near Vernal Utah affords a slight change of pace namely a river and trees before we enter Dinosaur National Monument which overlaps from northern Utah into Colorado you want to stop at the Quarry Visitor Center socalled because the Quarry face is actually the north side of the building and here Dr Theodore White the museum geologist is sh on the Quarry wall pointing out the relief of a dinosaur skeleton embedded in the Rock it's doubtful if these skeletons could be carved out of the rock without damage so the Museum Center has been built around the Quarry making it the only exhibit of its kind anywhere last year a quarter of a million people visited here from all parts of the globe to study diagrams such as these and then see the remains of giant beasts tens of millions of years old now this is the vertebrae of the dinosaur and I hope I pronounce it correctly camarasaurus the full size of the Beast must stagger the imagination the camarasaurus was a swamp creature and was prevalent in Utah 140 million years be this now is the scullin jaw bone of the Allosaurus a bloodthirsty creature that hunted the camarasaurus while dinosaurs and even the cares of present day living are left behind when it's vacation time in Utah the days are pleasantly warm not hot just warm in the upper Canyon altitudes and you'll drive alongside one mountain spring after another a few miles north of Provo at the town of American Fork you may want to explore the giant tagos cave discovered as recently as 1921 although a smaller attached cave known as Hansen's cave was first explored in 1887 the sightseers are Mr and Mrs Dennis sski of Portland Oregon now tagos is not unusual as Caverns go but when you're in Utah you can't very well be at Carl's bat in New Mexico at the same time but now you come here to slate Gorge along the Provo River not far from Provo or Salt Lake City and honestly you will just about lose your mind at the sheer beauty of this unspoiled Wilderness as late as June even in July the 12,000 foot wasach mountain range is still covered with a mantle of snow and there's a lake here Lake trial in the wasach range that will will turn a trout fisherman into a mass of ecstatic jelly man these trout are not only willing they're anxious now watch as Ken lyd of Sandy Utah actually toys with a lake trial trout well this is the man who said it first a Pioneer sick with fever who looked out upon a desolate land and proclaimed this is the place this too was part of that place a nature Wonderland called Utah