This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
This weekend, Utahns celebrate the arrival of Mormon pioneers, led by their Moses, Brigham Young, in the Salt Lake Valley. The late Salt Lake Tribune historian Harold Schindler reported the numbers of the first group to make it: The journey from present-day Nebraska was the culmination of a grueling 111 days involving 143 men, three women, two children, 72 wagons, 93 horses, 66 oxen, 52 mules, 19 cows and a flock of chickens.
Despite adversity and illness, all men, women and children arrived safely — a feat certainly worth commemorating with spectacular fireworks and one of the nation's largest parades.
But more remarkable is what this place has become in the ensuing 169 years. From that relative handful of humanity who joined the native peoples already here, the Wasatch Front has grown to a metropolitan area of 2 million in a state of 3 million. Within years of the initial Mormon migration, immigrants from around the world began to arrive. The first Greek newcomer is said to have disembarked in the 1870s. His countrymen and women joined him to the point that the community was planning its first church in 1905.
The same phenomenon unfolded with others from all of Europe and much of Asia. The railroad and industrialization gave opportunity to immigrants and refugees, and they arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake to mine silver and copper in the Wasatch and Oquirrhs, to build and run the railroads. To provide for a family. To build a life.
More recently, other brave souls have made their way to Utah, in the 1970s from Southeast Asia, escaping poverty and brutality of war, in following years from Eastern Europe, from the Middle East, from Africa — all for the same reasons. Most of the 20th Century arrivals have come from Mexico, and Central and South America, in search of work and safety — much like their Mormon antecedents.
So, as we take stock of our history this three-day weekend, let's also reflect on who and what we have become: A place of increasing complexity, where current demographic trends foretell a time when ethnic minorities become the majority, when the state becomes more culturally and religiously diverse.
That's worth celebrating, too. For what has brought people to Utah in the century and decades since 1847 often reflects the desires of those original overland trailblazers — a land of promise, peace and prosperity. Of education and a job. Of home. Let's believe that dream is still possible to realize here, even when the world sometimes seems inhospitable to aspiration and hope. Let's commit to welcome, and lift, one and all.