The early Mormon church just couldn’t seem to get along with its neighbors. After getting kicked out of several states at gunpoint (Ohio, Illinois, etc.), in 1847 they set their sights on a semi-mythical valley of salt 1,000 miles away in what was then Mexican territory. On the 150th anniversary of the Mormons entering the Salt Lake Valley (1997) I wrote a piece for our local paper about a trek to honor their journey.
The idea for the trek was started by two companies who do such things as a business. The Mormon Church soon realized that it would be known as “The Mormon Trek” by the public, so without actually sponsoring it, the Church supplied money, legal expertise, and “boots on the ground” organization along the 1,000 mile trail.
The highest and toughest section of the trail is Rocky Ridge, where many died of exhaustion or froze to death in the 1800s. It’s roughly between Jeffery City and Atlantic City, WY on the continental divide.
Sounds like the place to be for a story…let’s do it!
I called the Church “media relations” office to see what credentials I’d need to join their party and was politely told that world class media had been covering the Trek for months (true) and that all the credentials had been issued months ago. I took that as an invitation to join up.
Figuring about when the train would be in the area of the Ridge, I threw some gear into my pickup and headed out before dawn to see if I could find them. On a dark highway, somewhere north of Farson, WY, a large stake bed truck carrying plastic porta-potties roared past me. Where else could a pack of pink plastic potties be headed, out here in the middle of Wyoming, but for the dang wagon train? I followed the truck discreetly as the sun climbed into the sky.
Turns out it was headed for the noontime lunch/rest/ potty rendezvous site on the banks of the Sweetwater River. That was perfect for me. I found the “wagon master” and asked if I could spend a couple of days with him to write my story. He said, “If you can convince the Press Liaison Office, which is located in a trailer behind the Atlantic City Mercantile bar in Atlantic City, it’s OK by me.”
I knew the Atlantic City Merc from my oil drilling days (see A Summer in Butch Cassidy Country) so with the sorta recommendation from the wagon master, I was soon in possession of the prized yellow bandana, which gave me press status.
Whew!
The several-hour round trip put me back into camp just in time for the evening meal. The nice lady in Salt Lake was not kidding when she said “world class” media. Film, TV, and print crews from Germany, Japan, the Philippines, Italy, and more were there. The BBC had a film crew doing a multi-part documentary. Sygma Photo News of New York and Paris sent a photojournalist expressly to cover the Rocky Ridge crossing and the trail into Salt Lake. Around the campfire “Sygma” and I seemed to hit it off, especially when he found I had my own vehicle.
The following day was a 20-mile slog through choking dust. Few photo ops, so my new Sygma friend (sorry I can’t recall his name) and I jumped into my truck, and along with several other vehicles scouted photo spots for the next day’s climb over the Ridge. A World Class photojournalism lesson.
We saw a troop of Boy Scouts, several mountain bikes, and even what must have been a rental van, bump, scrape, bang and spark their way over the Ridge heading west.
The next morning following the pre-dawn prayer, we got what can only be described as a gut punch. It seems after previously okaying handcarts (but no wagons) over the Ridge, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who manages the area had decided “No Handcarts” after all. “For your own safety” they had changed the route to cut out the Ridge! The organizers of the Trek had known about the decision for weeks, but waited until morning prayers to tell us so we would not have a chance to raise hell with our BLM minders.
The organizers estimated that as many as 10,000 people had joined the Trek, for an hour, for a day, or even longer as it crossed this great country of ours. It was Feel Good Americana at its finest, and without asking for government permission of any kind. Imagine that! BLM jerked the Ridge just because they could, and the organizers decided to “go along to get along.” A double-doublecross!
I did manage to salvage one of the shots Sygma and I had scouted. That’s the BBC film crew in the foreground. Choking dust!
The new BLM-approved route resulted in an easier, shorter day, which left time for a few people with handcarts to load into pickup trucks and return to the Ridge on their own. Gordon Beharrell had come all the way from England to honor his ancestor who had made the journey, and would not be denied! Sygma got the shot he wanted too, and it appeared in National Geographic if memory serves.
It was actually a pretty good solution. Faces were saved, egos were stroked, and the late afternoon light was better for photos than the flat midday light would have been. Oh, and the prayer was a really nice touch, too.
The handcart women seemed to have an earthy fire about them. Sygma’s favorite lens target was a remarkable young woman named Nanc’ Adams who had been with the trek for the entire 93 day journey. To get the whole experience, she often walked barefoot carrying her 4-year-old daughter on her shoulder, while pushing or pulling a cart.
Apparently that was a fairly common practice back in the day. “ Save your shoes for the rough parts” to be sure they will last the whole 1,000 miles.
As the trek got closer to Salt Lake someone thought to check where the handcarts would be featured in the annual 24th of July PIONEER DAY PARADE.
The 24th is bigger in Utah than the 4th of July. It celebrates the day Brigham Young and his pioneers first entered the Salt Lake valley on July 24th 1847, and Brigham said “This Is The Place.”
For some reason the Parade’s previously promised inclusion had been canceled. “Besides, our parade was planned months ago.” Sound familiar?
On June 22, both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran splashy front page stories on the Trek. The City of Ogden, which is just north of Salt Lake, saw it and contacted the Trek to invite them to participate in their much smaller Ogden celebration.
When the good burghers at the Salt Lake Parade realized not only had they fumbled away the prize of a lifetime, but that it was now going to OGDEN (awk!) they reversed their reversal and re-invited the Trek back to Salt Lake. The Parade set new attendance records and the handcarts stole the show.
The animosity between Salt Lake and Ogden goes way back to 1869 when the completion of the transcontinental railroad near Ogden brought money, booze, and painted ladies to the previously isolated “City of The Saints.” Ogden is still pretty much a railroad town today.
The whole Trek was happy worldwide news. Everyone loves a success story. I think the best story was in the local Ogden Standard-Examiner with a two-page foldout of barefoot Nanc ’Adams pushing a cart while carrying her daughter, with the “This Is the Place” monument in the background.
And it looks like a Sygma photo to boot. What a grand adventure!
Thanks for listening.
Duane
