July 24 is celebrated annually in Utah as Pioneer Day, an official state holiday. Though the holiday is often understood as commemorating one specific moment in Utah’s history, the celebration has taken shape over time to encompass a larger commemoration of the state and its people. The 1897 festivities are one example.
Between July 21 and 24, 1847, the first company of Latter-day Saint pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, which was then part of Mexico. Their settlement of the Wasatch Front — and later the rest of the state — forever changed the landscape and the lives of Indigenous peoples who already lived in the area.
Two years after their arrival, on July 24, 1849, the settlers first celebrated the holiday we now know as Pioneer Day. In many ways, it was a typical nineteenth-century patriotic festivity — celebratory gunfire, music, patriotic speeches, and reading the Declaration of Independence — intermixed with religious rhetoric. A communal meal took place in the afternoon for not only the Latter-day Saint settlers, but also local Native Americans and gold miners passing through on their way to California.
By 1897, life in Utah had changed drastically from fifty years earlier. Indigenous peoples had been moved from their ancestral homelands primarily onto reservations. The transcontinental railroad, completed north of the Great Salt Lake in 1869, connected the entire nation. Utah had substantial agricultural and mining enterprises. And Utah had achieved statehood just a year and a half earlier.
Pioneer Day had become a well-established tradition, and the 1897 celebration was a special jubilee, commemorating fifty years since Brigham Young’s company arrived in the valley. It continued to honor the vanguard company of 1847 pioneers. For example, local newspapers remembered Green Flake, the enslaved Black man who had driven Brigham Young’s wagon for much of the original journey. Flake had since moved to Idaho, but he returned to Utah for the festivities.
But Pioneer Day had become more than just a day to remember one particular group of people. On July 22, as part of the five-day jubilee, the Utah State Historical Society was founded, now called the Utah Historical Society, indicating that Utahns saw the holiday as one to commemorate the history of the state, not just a religious holiday. Parades during that jubilee included Native Americans and the Pony Express, in addition to Latter-day Saint pioneers. (To be sure, some parade elements included offensive racial stereotypes.) The parades also included various modern businesses and industries from most of Utah’s counties. Then as now, it was not enough to merely remember one event that happened decades earlier — it was essential to make the day relevant to present concerns.
As traditions evolve within the state, some Utahns have embraced a playful observance known as Pie and Beer Day. This community celebration began informally at a downtown Salt Lake City bar more than a decade ago to further expand the scope of festivities within the state providing communities with more opportunities to gather and celebrate local flavors and businesses. Today, informal celebrations continue statewide.
Pioneer Day has a long history of honoring the community-building efforts of all Utahns, past and present. However you celebrate July 24, Pioneer Day presents the opportunity to learn more about Utah history and celebrate the trailblazers in your own community.
Sources:
- Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 143–46.
- R. Mark Melville, “The Twenty-Fourth of July: An Overview of Utah’s State Holiday, 1849–2022,” Latter-day Saint Historical Studies 24, no. 1 (Spring 2023): 73.
- Thomas G. Alexander, Utah: The Right Place, rev. ed. (Gibbs Smith, 1996), 155, 204–5, 246–49.
- Melville, “Twenty-Fourth of July,” 93.
- “Some Jubilee Visitors,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 26, 1897, 3; “More Pioneers,” Deseret Evening News, July 19, 1897, 2.
- “The Historical Society,” Salt Lake Herald, July 23, 1897, 11.
- “The Final Great Parade,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 25, 1897, 4.
- “Parade of the Counties,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 1897, [1].
- Erin Dixon, “Utah Pioneer Day and Pie & Beer Day: Celebrating Tradition and Community,” Utah Stories, July 21, 2024, https://utahstories.com/2024/07/utah-pioneer-day-and-pie-beer-day-celebrating-tradition-and-community/.