Pioneer Day bugs my neighbor.

Paul is kind to animals and small children. He is invariably fair and temperate, but the Utah practice of treating the Independence Day as a warm-up act to the really Big Event -- July 24th -- strikes him as un-American.

Paul is not from around here. If he were, he would know that the day Brigham Young entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake was a link on the daisy chain that led from Columbus to Plymouth Rock to the Declaration of Independence to ... Brigham declaring "This is the right place."

This makes us feel important. Different from Mississippi and Kentucky and Wisconsin, which were settled in the usual boring way: creeping homesteads rolling over the original inhabitants.

The Mormon leap over the great plains to the Rockies was, by contrast, like a moon shot. Manifest Destiny, meaning something so audacious that it could only be accomplished by the hand of God, showed itself in the temerity of the Mormon pioneers when they broke soil and sowed wheat around present-day Pioneer park in 1847.

More than just settlers throwing up frontier towns, the Mormons saw themselves as building Zion -- God's kingdom on earth. This led to some curious Utah spins on American history that are at the root of what bothers my neighbor.

For example, the Civil War was a big "either with us or against us" national moment. Utahns, however, responded by waiting on the sidelines to pick up the pieces.

Young wrote in 1860: "While the waves of commotion are breaking near the whole country, Utah in her rocky fortress is biding her time to step in and rescue the constitution."

Meanwhile, no Utah volunteers were ever raised for either side.

When the telegraph reached Salt Lake City in 1861, Brigham wired "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country." However, the North was never sure about Mormon loyalty and it was generally assumed that Utah was playing footsy with the Confederacy.

Here is a summary of a Philadelphia Morning Post interview with Brigham Young, reprinted in Deseret News, Nov. 24, 1869: "Then came the enquiry how it was that the people of Utah came to sympathize with the Southern Confederacy. The reporter seems to have been under the impression that we leaned to the side of the Confederates during the war. He was told that 'We did not sympathize with the rebellion,' but on the contrary, 'earnestly and persistently refused all overtures made to us to take sides with the South.' "

More recently, Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy was hobbled by suspicion of his LDS background. An impression not helped by some of his LDS -- mostly Utah -- supporters who were only too happy to prattle on in blogs and chat rooms about how Romney was going to be the fulfillment of Mormon scripture and "save the Constitution." This kind of talk doesn't endear Utah to our fellow Americans.

In the meantime, I've encouraged my neighbor not to impute too much meaning into Pioneer Day. Just be happy with another holiday weekend.

Pat Bagley is the coauthor of Dinosaurs of Utah.