“Surely This City is Bound to Shine,”: Descriptions of Salt Lake City by Western-Bound Emigrants, 1849-1868
Keywords
Mormon Studies, Salt Lake City, emigrants
Abstract
"Surely this city is bound to shine," so wrote forty-niner H. C. St. Clair of Springfield, Illinois as he passes through Slat Lake City on his way to the California gold fields. Between 1849 and 1868, thousands of emigrants passed through this desert oasis, recording their descriptions of this unique Mormon utopia and its isolated inhabitants. These two decades, when the Great Basin began to “blossom as the rose,” saw a unique period of overland emigrant travel, providing more time for observation than a hurried visit by train would allow. Some migrants stayed only a day or two, just long enough to obtain provisions or make needed repairs. This was especially true of the argonauts, from whom we have the largest number of accounts. In contrast to these short visits, some fortyniners spent the winter before pushing on to the gold fields. John D. Unruh Jr. estimates that in the mid-nineteenth century, the average length of an emigrant’s stay while passing through the famed city was about six and a half days.
Original Publication Citation
Fred E. Woods, “Surely This City is Bound to Shine,”: Descriptions of Salt Lake City by Western-Bound Emigrants, 1849-1868,” Utah Historical Quarterly 74, no. 1 (Fall 2006) 334–348.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Woods, Fred, "“Surely This City is Bound to Shine,”: Descriptions of Salt Lake City by Western-Bound Emigrants, 1849-1868" (2006). Faculty Publications. 5637.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/5637
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2006
Permanent URL
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/8367
Publisher
Utah Historical Quarterly
Language
English
College
Religious Education
Department
Church History and Doctrine
Copyright Use Information
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