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SALT LAKE CITY — For years Utahns have celebrated the Mormon pioneer trek that ended with entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.
Pioneer Day has been a Utah tradition for more than a century, when the first celebration was held in 1849 with about 20 LDS congregations meeting up to what is now Temple Square, where there were speeches, music and a feast to give thanks for the pioneers settling in the area.
The earliest archived news report of “24th of July” celebrations came from the Deseret News on July 26, 1851. The report described the events from the celebrations in Salt Lake City that year, featuring everything from music, speeches and “the firing of cannon 110 times.”
“The bursts of feeling by music, singing, speeches, orations, toasts, the order of arrangement during the exercises in the Bowery, was beyond most exquisite calculation of the most fastidious, and was unsurpassed by any preceding it among the most refined and civilized nation on the earth,” the reporter wrote regarding the festivities.
The first statewide commemoration didn’t happen until eight years later in 1857. According to the Utah Department of Heritage & Arts, a little more than 2,500 people attended the celebration along with 1,028 horses and mules, 464 carriages and wagons, and 332 oxen and cows.
The day featured much of the same elements as previous celebrations.
However, the festivities were darkened by noon on July 24 when word arrived that U.S. troops led by general Albert Johnson’s army were on their way to the Utah Territory.
An 1877 celebration included a jubilee at the tabernacle on Temple Square. For 25 cents (10 cents for children), the celebration featured a choir, a marching band, speeches and recitals, including Brigham Young’s final speech on the holiday before his death.
In 1882, territorial legislature officially named the July 24th holiday Pioneer Day.
Since then, on or around July 24 has been filled with all sorts of celebrations from parades with floats to fireworks and so much more.
There’s the Days of ‘47 events, including a parade held in downtown Salt Lake City, as well as a rodeo at Vivint Arena, and a pagent.