This is the Place Heritage Park is located up on
the east side of Salt Lake City against the mountains. It contains
the "This is the Place" Monument and Old Deseret Village.
Old Deseret Village contains almost 60 original
and reconstructed buildings from Utah's pioneer past, and many
additional buildings are currently being added. Seminary Sam is
standing in front of a wagon that is typical of the hundreds of
wagons that transported Saints across the plains from 1847 until the
coming of the railroad in 1869.
The "This is the Place" Monument (above) was
designed by Mahonri M. Young, a grandson of Brigham Young. It was
dedicated in 1947--during the centennial celebration of the
pioneer's arriving in the Salt Lake Valley. (Mahonri Young also
created the seated statue of Brigham Young that represents the state
of Utah in the national capitol building in Washington, D.C.)
The various statues and reliefs around the
monument depict scenes from Utah's history. The scene above depicts
the Saints first entering the valley.
This is a reconstruction of a typical Latter-day
Here the people gathered for meetings and social
events until more permanent structures could be built. The original
bowery in the Salt Lake Valley was built in just one day, July 31,
1847, by the Mormon Battalion. It was made of wood posts, a hardened
dirt floor, and a roof of thatched brush and willow boughs. The
boweries could provide space and shelter for anywhere from eighty to
several thousand people, depending on the size of the structure. (Old
Deseret Village Guidebook, hereafter referred to as
This is what much of Salt Lake City must have
looked like in 1847 and 1848. The cabin in the foreground belonged
to Levi and Rebecca Riter.
One of only two surviving buildings from the
original pioneer fort built in the Salt Lake Valley, the Riter Cabin
was built in 1847 for Levi and Rebecca Riter. ... While crossing the
plains, Levi paid to have this building built before he arrived in
the Valley. John Boss and his sons, who were part of the advance
party, built it in the south section of the pioneer fort.
It had a dirt floor and no windows, but was a
considerable improvement over the other early settlers' homes
because it had a board and slab roof. Other cabins only had leaky
mud and willow roofs. When the Riters arrived, Levi paid fifty
dollars for the cabin. (Guidebook)
The cabin over Seminary Sam's head is a
reconstruction of the William V. Burnett Cabin. The original cabin
was built in the Ogden Valley.
The cabin had no fireplace or stove, so to keep
warm they used lots of blankets and huddled together for warmth.
They also used the grasses from the land around the cabin to stuff
their mattresses. Because they were poor they didn't have much money
to buy meat, and they needed what livestock they had for other
purposes such as milk, butter, and eggs, so the children would also
hunt for crickets and grasshoppers. They would pull the legs off
these creatures and eat them in cricket and grasshopper stew. (Guidebook)
This is the John Gardiner cabin. The original was
built in Pleasant Grove, Utah. John, his two wives, and 10 children
lived in this home.
This is an original cabin that belonged to Levi
and Harriot Roberts. It was built near present-day Kaysville, Utah.
Levi Roberts was a member of the Mormon Battalion.
Levi built this home near a stream where willows
grew so he could continue his trade of basket weaving, which he
practiced in England before immigrating to the United States. This
two-room log cabin was the family's second home and was very
sturdily built. When it was moved to its present location there was
no need to dismantle it like so many of the other buildings in the
Village because it was built so well. It was just picked up as one
unit and moved. (Guidebook)
Seminary Sam's "father," Ken Alford, tries his
hand at pulling one of the handcarts in Old Deseret Village.
The livery stable provided an essential service
in housing the animals and vehicles needed to travel throughout the
territory. A person could also rent horses, wagons, and carriages
from the livery. ...
The pioneers tended to use oxen rather than
horses to do most of the work for several reasons. First, when a
horse is hitched to a large load, it will pull once and if it cannot
pull the load it will balk, whereas an ox will lean against a load
continuously even if the load is too heavy. Secondly, oxen do not
require high grade food like horses and can live off the harsher
grasses found naturally in the area. The term "ox" means any type of
cattle (mainly males since they are stronger) that are over four
years old and have been trained to be beasts of burden. (Guidebook)
This is the reconstructed 1853 Social Hall. (The
original building was torn down in 1922.)
The Social Hall served as the site where people
would gather for social and cultural events. People often would come
here and dance on the 20 by 40-foot stage on the second floor, as it
was greatly encouraged by Brigham Young. The hall was also Utah's
first theater, where Salt Lake's Deseret Dramatic Association opened
its 1853 spring season. ... The Social Hall later was also used as a
gymnasium, library, and school. (Guidebook)
The original of this 1854 gristmill was located
at the mouth of City Creek Canyon in Manti, Utah.
This is the reconstructed 1856 Cedar City Tithing
The tithing office complex was an important
economic and social part of every LDS community. ...while the Church
encouraged its members to pay tithing in U.S. currency whenever
possible, tithing often had to be paid in produce or labor. A farmer
might have taken one load in ten of hay to the tithing barn to be
stored until it could be either sold in exchange for money or other
products or allocated by the bishop to the needy members of the
town. Tithing offices also served as general stores. (Guidebook)
This is a replica of Heber C. Kimball's Salt Lake
City home that was completed in 1860. The original home was built
kitty-corner from Temple Square (on the northeast corner of Main
Street and North Temple). The original home was built on a 10-acre
The Pine Valley Chapel and Relief Society Hall
are pictured above.
Scottish shipbuilder Ebenezer Bryce built this
chapel in the early Southern Utah settlement of Pine Valley.
Conceived and designed in 1868, it remains one of the states
architectural treasures. Using traditional shipbuilding techniques,
Bryce first crafted the log walls on the ground and raised the
completed sides into place. Then the roof, which resembles the
inverted hull of a ship, was joined with the walls using wooden pegs
and strips of rawhide instead of nails. (Guidebook)
This chapel was Bryce's first attempt at
constructing a building.
Relief Society groups in early Utah communities
often had separate structures built next to Church buildings. The
design of this replica was based on the architecture of Relief
Society halls throughout Utah. (Guidebook)
This is reconstructed copy of the Huntsman Hotel
that was built in Fillmore, Utah in 1872. For a brief period, the
central Utah town of Fillmore (named after a president of the United
States) was the capitol of Utah.
It featured 24 rooms, full-length porches, a fine
dining room, and an in-house barbershop. ... Considered the Finest
Hotel in Utah, many dignitaries, including Brigham Young, Wilford
Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow stayed in this magnificent building while
they conducted political conventions. During peak seasons, like
church conferences or political conventions, the spacious attic
would also have been used for additional sleeping space. (Guidebook)
There are many other buildings and homes found in
Old Deseret Village, such as an observatory, a barber shop and
shaving parlor, a bank, a drug store, a cabinet shop, a furniture
company, a store, a newspaper print shop, a bootshop, a fire
station, a carriage house, a blacksmith shop, and a school.
Near the entrance to the This is the Place
Heritage Park is a National Pony Express Monument.
The Pony Express, which began in 1860, operated
for just 18 brief months.
Pony Express riders rode from St. Joseph,
Missouri through Utah to
Sacramento, California. The Pony Express became outdated by the