Published April 27, 1996. Reprinted with permission from LDS Church News published by the Deseret Morning News.

'Day Has Dawned' to Beautify Peak
R. Scott Lloyd, Church News, staff writer

Its day has come! So proclaim organizers of an effort to improve and memorialize Ensign Peak, the conical-shaped mountain on Salt Lake City's northern boundary that symbolizes prophecies of the latter-day gathering of Israel.

Ground was broken April 17 for construction at the site, which will include an entrance plaza, information stations, hiking trails and a nature park. Reseeding and reclamation work along the trail has been under way since March.Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve spoke to assembled guests, as did Mayor Deedee Corradini of Salt Lake City, which owns Ensign Peak. Elder Ballard is chairman of the Church's Pioneer Sesquicentennial Committee, which recognizes the project as a part of next year's observance of the Pioneers' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.

Dedication of the park by President Gordon B. Hinckley is scheduled for July 26, the 149th anniversary of the hike to the top by President Brigham Young and other Church leaders, when President Young named it Ensign Peak.

The project is sponsored by a civic group, the Ensign Peak Foundation, which has been raising funds for several years. To complement the project, the Church will construct a memorial garden on land it owns near the base. A sesquicentennial project, the garden will be completed in 1997 and will present the history of the peak and the Pioneers who established the city and built the Salt Lake Temple.

"This is a great, significant, important historical site in our lovely city," Elder Ballard declared, "and we believe that it is going to be a statement on our part, 150 years later, of our appreciation and love for those who paid such a price to establish what we now enjoy in this beautiful valley of the Great Salt Lake."

Mayor Corradini said the project is important because it adds another official park to the city and because it observes not only the Church Pioneer Sesquicentennial but also the sesquicentennial of Salt Lake City. "We will be celebrating as well, and to think that this is the place where our city was laid out, from this peak, and the vision for the future of our city took place on this peak, it holds tremendous historic significance for Salt Lake City as well."

J Malan Heslop, president of Ensign Peak Foundation, outlined the history of Ensign Peak. He noted that Brigham Young and his associates, arrived in the valley July 24, 1847, a Saturday, attended Church services on Sunday, and then hiked to the summit on Monday.

"One of his party said, `This would be a place to raise an ensign!' " Brother Heslop recounted. The name is a reference to such prophecies as this: "And he will lift up an ensign to the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."(Isa. 11:12.)

Widespread immigration of LDS converts to the Rocky Mountain west from Europe and elsewhere - and the subsequent expansion of the Church around the world from that base - is viewed as a partial fulfillment of that prophecy.

The movement for a park at the site began in 1908 but did not come to fruition until 1989, when the Ensign Peak Foundation was organized to protect and beautify the peak.

At the groundbreaking, a quartet sang "High on the Mountain Top," the hymn by Joel Hills Johnson and Ebenezer Beesley that was inspired by Ensign Peak.

Michael Glauser, a member of the Pioneer Sesquicentennial Committee, said the Church garden will have some benches, trees, a plaza and some plaques to tell of the spiritual history of Ensign Peak.

The Ensign Peak park will have three plazas, he said. The first one will be called the "Courtyard of Nations," commemorating the various nationalities that settled in the valley and will feature a representation of a world map. Steps and a wheelchair ramp will ascend 40-50 feet up to the plaza. On a wall around it will be plaques that tell of American Indians, trappers, settlers, the pioneers and the men who planned the city.

From there, Brother Glauser said, the trail will turn from asphalt to gravel roadbase, and will continue to the second plaza, "Vista Mountain." It will feature a city panorama and murals that depict city sites.

The trail will continue up around the peak to the ``saddle'' area where there will be a concrete amphitheater that will seat 30-40 people for community and family events.

The trail will culminate at the peak itself, where a third plaza will allow visitors to gaze at the same vista that President Young saw. There the monument will be restored, native vegetation will be planted and benches and information plaques will be provided.