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SALT LAKE CITY — The downtown streets, normally boisterous and festive on Pioneer Day mornings, were quiet Friday as Utahns celebrated the 1847 founding of Salt Lake City amidst a global pandemic that has disrupted businesses, sports, events — and yes, even holidays.
Utahns have been honoring the pioneers since shortly after they arrived. Days of '47 parade chair Jodene Smith said the Pioneer Day parade can be traced all the way back to 1849, and has been interrupted since then only by America's major wars. But now the parade is interrupted again, giving Smith an unwelcome respite from her normally frenetic July.
Smith oversees a parade that has grown to include more than 2,000 participants and perhaps 200,000 spectators each year — roughly equivalent to the entire population of Salt Lake City. She has been involved with Days of '47 since 1996 and with the parade since 2005, she said.
Utahns pitch tents along the parade route downtown, staking out a good view of the action and sometimes arriving days in advance. Smith said the parade includes floats from Wasatch Front city governments, Utah colleges and universities, and various churches, including local stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We had all sorts of different religions, different ethnicities, and they all made it together. They worked as a team, they triumphed as a team.
–Jodene Smith, Days of '47 parade chair
"And we have antique cars, we have bands and horses," Smith said. "We get (entrants) coming down from Idaho."
Smith said she loves the opportunity to gather the community and honor the pioneers — both the Latter-day Saints and the myriad others who helped make Utah what it is today. "Just acknowledging the feat and the accomplishment that the pioneers came to this valley," she said. "Not all of them were Latter-day Saint pioneers. We had all sorts of different religions, different ethnicities, and they all made it together. They worked as a team, they triumphed as a team.
"I think that's courageous, and I think that shows we can all work together at a common goal and make it successful. I think remembering the pioneers that way, and our ancestors and where they came from — they did hard things, and we can do hard things, too."
Smith said she hopes to keep organizing the Days of '47 parade in a post-pandemic world for years to come. "As long as they'll have me," she said. As for this year, Smith has found new ways to celebrate.
"We just got back (Wednesday)," she said. "My kids took me camping this year since we've never been able to camp in July for the last 20 some-odd years." And she's celebrating Friday with a backyard barbecue, complete with a viewing of a past Pioneer Day parade on TV. Smith never actually gets to watch the parade on the day of, she explained.
"We're just going to sit and have fun and look at the floats, and just remember having a good time."
