Park is the place to honor heritage

SALT LAKE CITY — Another Pioneer Day is around the corner. Saturday marks the 163rd anniversary of the Mormon pioneers' official entry into the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

There was some debate, as the oft-told story is oft told, among the 148 people in that inaugural wagon train about whether the desert valley that unfolded at their feet was their final destination or just another rest stop on the way to California.

But Brigham Young, being the leader, put an end to the discussion when he looked out the back of his wagon and uttered "This is the place," or some variation of that.

Every place has its origin story, and that's this place's.

And every year it gets everyone an extra day off work.

There are numerous places to reflect on the First Settling on that extra day off. There's the aptly named This Is the Place monument that overlooks the valley. There's Ensign Peak. There's Temple Square — the first 40-acre plot to be laid out and the centerpiece of the entire settlement.

But for solitude and a connection to genuine pioneer roots, there may not be a better place than the Mormon Pioneer Memorial located on the south side of First Avenue half a block east of State Street.

Solitude, because almost nobody's ever there.

Genuine pioneer roots because here is the final resting place of Brigham Young.

When the great colonizer died in 1877 and they selected a spot to bury him, this was the place.

Besides Brigham Young's grave, there are 12 other people buried in the little park. Seven of them are Brigham's wives: Mary Ann Angell, Mary V., Eliza R. Snow, Martha B., Susannah S., Lucy A. and Emeline Y.

Brigham Young had anywhere from 27 to 56 wives, depending on whose history you believe, but only the markers of the above seven are left to surround him in the Memorial Park, where his grave sits in the extreme southeast corner surrounded by a decorative iron fence.

The other grave markers are for Joseph A. Young, Brigham's eldest son, and one of his daughters, Alice Young Clawson, along with her three baby children, Luna, Harry and Monroe.

At the front of the park there's a monument to William Clayton, who acted as Brigham Young's clerk in that first wave of 1847 pioneers and during the crossing wrote the words to the popular Mormon trail song, "Come, Come Ye Saints."