Pioneer Day marks the day in 1847 the Mormons arrived in what would become Salt Lake City. (They conveniently forget that there were Catholic missions here before that.) Anyway, the entire state is closed today, there are huge parades in which every Mormon ward, stakehouse, temple, chapel, and Boy Scout troop have floats. There are huge rodeos as well. This is also the July day when more fireworks are sold and lighted than even the Fourth.

I don't know of any other state that so officially honors a single religion. Is there?

If you hate living there, why stay?

When I lived in Germany there was Faschings. Which is a huge pre-lent party every year. I didn't feel the need to denigrate all those Catholics and Lutherans that participated.

There are 49 other states to choose from. I personally would never live in Utah.

How did you gather I hate living here? I merely described to those unaware of it what today is to most Mormons and ask if any other state has something similar.

I think Michigan and Minnesota celebrate Ramadan.

dammmmm
Utah pedophile day

Rocky, I am pretty sure all 50 states take December 25th off as a holiday.


BTW, it is likely my ancestors were there in 1847 when they arrived in what became Salt Lake City.

Somehow, Christmas no longer seems to celebrated as a religious holiday, and even it it were it isn't dedicated to a single religion.

The same goes for Mardi Gras, which is tied to the beginning of Lent (Catholic) but seems to be more a celebration of debauchery than religion. Voodoo is a big part of it, as well. And even though its practitioners celebrate Voodoo as a religion, Louisiana doesn't come out and say Mardi Gras is a Voodoo - or Catholic - holiday.

So I still can't think of a single state-sponsored religious holiday like Utah has.

Does the state government let their employees off for it? Do businesses?

Do the Mormons celebrate the Mountain Meadows Massacre?

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the killing of roughly 120 emigrants who were passing through Southern Utah in September 1857. The massacre occurred on September 11, 1857. The emigrants–men, women, and children–were traveling from Arkansas to California, part of the Baker-Fancher wagon train. They were killed by a group of Mormons with the help of local Paiute Indians.

I was just gong to mention the Meadow Massacre but you beat me to it A few weeks ago a couple of Missionaries stopped by here and when I asked them about the Massacre, they acted like they had never heard of such a thing. I told them to Google it!

St. Patrick's Day in New York.

The run-up to Lent in Louisiana.

St Pat's Day might be close, but I think it's more of a Boston city event than a whole Massachusetts event. I already spoke about Mardi Gras above.

Ricky: Yes, many businesses are closed today, and all state offices are.

I'm a good ol Mormon boy and that is a pretty ignorant question coming from a so called Christian man....... To answer your idiotic question NO

Do the Catholics celebrate the killing of native Americans???

It was flat out murder on a broad scale, no doubt about it.

But Christianity (for example) doesn't have a blood-free history either. Plenty of atrocities have been committed by people in the name of different religions. The Muslims nowadays stand out among all others regarding this.

State Beverage Stores are even closed today ........OMG

Do "christians" celebrate the Haun's Mill massacre, the Missouri "Extermination Order" (which stood for nearly 140 years), the "Warsaw/Nauvoo wolf hunts", and all the other "expeditions" launched against Mormons for the purpose of killing them or driving them away?

"Christians" may not want to start casting stones against others for violence committed against women and children in the U.S.; just a thought.

The biggest problem was that the mormons told the pioneers to "Give us your guns and TRUST US and we will give everything back when you get past our territory". That is when the Mormans turned the indians loose on the "Trusting Pioneers" and were slaughtered. Hence the term "Never trust a Mormon".

Guys, let's not turn my innocent question into a pizzing contest or an anti-religion diatribe. If that stuff continues, I'll delete the thread.

Opening day of deer season is a high religious holiday as well.

As well it should be.

no, arizona does not.
As to utah doing it, I have no problem with it at all.
I hope rocky will forgive me for this but....
I was raised around mormons, part of my family are mormons, I am not. If there was one single group i would generally trust without thought it would be some of my mormon friends.
There is more than one side to that mt meadows incident, given the period it happened.
On the other hand, I am surprised noone has filed some kind of lawsuit in utah over this.

come to think of it, while it is not an official holiday, cinco de mayo is rather widely celebrated, even among the gringo's.

If it's such a great UTAH holiday, why are so darn many Utahans here in Wyoming this weekend?

Honestly it doesn't bother me, but Alpine was literally swamped with people last evening. A large percentage were folks from Utah up for the weekend. We normally see quite a few but there had to be at least double the normal number. Merchants were making a killing in Alpine last night.

Even with copious amounts of Tequila, Cinco de Mayo isn't a religous holiday.

Yep, only 22 days til rifle season for Whitetails here.

John

How about LA/New Orleans and pre-lent? Cheers NC

The big issue is whether Brigham Young knew about it or ordered it. That is what historians seem to fight over. Not that two wrong make a right, but the Mormons were treated pretty badly in Missouri and Illinois. Read up on Hahn's Mill Massacre.

Jordan

SRM, the influx (for you, out flow for us) could either be non-Mormon Utahns or just a whole lotta folks wanting to take advantage of another three-day weekend. Probably some of each.

northcountry, you're the third guy to mention Mardi Gras. RTWFT

I don't know about that, i can remember some times with mescal south of the border where I thought i had found God.

There was one time down in Rosarita where I thought I was going to MEET God!

yeah but on May 6th you probably have more people holding their head and saying "oh dear God"


so I'd have to vote for May 6th

John Lee, who led the massacre, stated in his memoirs that Young knew all about it from the start. He also denied that Young knew about it until after the fact. Lee was obviously lying in one or the other.
The fact that Lee wasn't tried until 20 years after the murders, after Young had died, it leaves some good questions about whether they were trying to protect Young during his lifetime.

Lots of people were treated badly back in those days. Regardless, approaching someone under a flag of truce, telling them "trust us, lay down your arms and we will safely escort you from our area and then return your belongings", then murdering all of them shortly after they complied is a pretty evil thing to do. Men, women, and children. Some of the children younger than 7 years of age were spared. Regardless of anything else, it was pretty evil. John Lee likely knew all there was to know about it, including whether Brigham Young ultimately okayed the massacre. Lee was conveniently removed to a desolate place on the Colorado River that became Lee's Ferry. After the Civil War was over, criticism for the massacre became news again. It wouldn't go away. And John Lee became the sacrificial lamb for the Mormon's. He was the scapegoat. The Mormon's themselves tried him, convicted him, and sentenced him to death, and they killed him. There is a photograph in existence that shows him sitting on his casket prior to being shot to death.

Nearly all major religions have some pretty sordid atrocities in their histories, perpetrated by the practitioners of those religions.

Yes, as do the secular movements. In fact, I think the secular genocidal convulsions far outnumber the religious ones, at least in terms of total deaths. Regardless, its evil.

If the Mormons want to celebrate on the 24th why should anyone outside their beliefs care?

As to the Mountain Massacre, I had blood related family killed there, and we suspect my wife's family had some on the other side.

Interesting as my uncle since passed in his late 80's was born in Arkansas and told me of the old folks telling him the story when he was a boy. Some of them knew the story well, some of the folks or their direct descendants, which he passed along to me many years ago.
Years later as an accident searching Ancestry.Com I came across the connection and it was relatives. Some were the small children that survived, and later returned just as my uncle had said.

Some of the wife's family moved to eastern Idaho from southern Utah in the MM area in about the correct time frame as to have been involved, and it is known some of those involved folks did leave that area soon after.

Sometimes a small interconnected world we live in.

Enjoy people of Utah, celebrate!

St Patrick's Day in Montana. At least Silver Bow County!

Sycamore

Non-Mormon taxpayers that have state related business to attend?

Every State has a holiday. California's is Sept. 9th. All State workers get the day off and a lot of businesses too.

Get over yourself.

I'll be at Lee's Ferry on Aug 29th and 30th, utilizing Mr. Lee's launch spot. He was the only person who was convicted and executed for the massacre.

My non-Mormon friends call it Pie & Beer Day. Get over it.

How far down the river are you going?

My remembrance of Lees Ferry was it was hot as hades.

Hell yeah you showed them boys that's for sure....

its funny when people move to another area that has a unique culture and think it needs to change to fit them. Why not learn to enjoy it. I love community celebrations. You don't have to agree or adhere to the religion why not simply enjoy the festivities? I see lots of american flags and tons of patriotic activities. Sounds fun right? YEAH enjoy it.

traditions make us all feel part of something. they give us something to look forward to. Sadly america seems to make fun of these sorts of things and try to keep us all in our own corners mad at each other.

Rocky,

You've shared an interesting observation, that a lot of folks probably didn't know about.

My take is that it has become an historic celebration over time, rather than a religious one, although I am sure there is plenty of prayer and religion.

For many years, for most Utahans history and religion were bound together, and many worked hard to keep it that way

Now days, I understand that SLC is only 50% LDS, although I am sure it is much higher in most of the rest of the state.

When Coal was King, I am sure Price, in Carbon County, was less than 50%. Maybe Bingham Canyon as well.

Time changes things, but it is good to hang on to some of the old as well.

Have you read the book "Proper Edge of the Sky"?

Highly recommend for anyone remotely interested in Utah, southern Utah, or rural Utah.

For the rest of you, I deeply apologize if my post has slowed or stopped the sectarian strife, that was not my intent.

Sycamore

Sycamore, thanks for that. I regret that my post brought out a few religious bigots and a few more who somehow think I hate Utah.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. I am happily settled here for the remainder of my days. I have no animosity towards Mormons whatever. I do recognize that when any group anywhere is a majority they will set rules to meet their own standards. That's true here, too. No sweat.

Utah is a great place to live. It's big, it's beautiful, it has four distinct geologic/climatic regions, it has more national and state parks than any other state, it has good hunting and fishing plus lots of golf, and it is overwhelmingly conservative with minimal gun laws.

I regret giving you haters a platform for your venom. Now STFU.

Just learned about this today via the morning paper.

http://www.thespectrum.com/story/ne...s-celebrate-pioneers-pie-beers/30655393/

Pie and Beer sound good, but frustrating for an old diabetic like me.

Paul

Thing about pioneers, that's no longer politically correct to celebrate. The "nativeamerican" activists are trying to revise that as well, to make white settlement of the west a bad thing to be ashamed of.

Doesn't Florida celebrate "Cinco de Mayo"?

Is the holiday celebrating some religious doctrine, or the day the first settlers arrived in the valley?

Rocky is a friend and a neighbor here in Ogden. As nearly as I can tell, he likes it here, contributes to the community, and fits right in.

He does have a keen sense of irony, and is curious about unusual things. He also has an unusually good knack for turning an insightful phrase.

It's completely within his character to honestly ask a question like, hey, does anyone else do this? In that, it's nothing more than his native inclination to ask and investigate.

You lost me at "golf". I think I'll stay a couple of hours north. Even if we have more Mormons than you do.......

Not to inflame anyone or incite religious bigotry, but I grew up in northern Utah with a fully credentialed pioneer lineage. (Great-great grandfather was a Mormon Apostle with 8 wives. ) Because that part of Utah (Cache Valley) is my home, the geography and that area are very much imprinted on me and I still call it home and enjoy visiting very much. It has much to commend it.

However, we left Utah 28 years ago; we just had to get out of there. AT the time my wife and I were both very active LDS (and she still is extremely active), but it was too much of a mono-culture for both of us then and still is today (at least for me). I found it boring and stifling. This is mostly true if you are LDS I think. If you are not LDS though, you can pretty much do what you want, you just have to deal with some annoying aspects of the LDS culture in the public square, but I don't think its near as stifling as when you are a member of the LDS faith and then living in a community where it seems like everyone else is a member of the same faith.

Every culture has its quirks. For example, I positively cannot stand San Francisco and most of Kalifornia (even though I live in the state). I think for non-Mormons living in Utah, you just learn to deal with the quirks of living in a place where a particular religion dominates the culture. You just learn to deal with some of the annoyances that go along with that.


Jordan

Thanks for sharing your perspective, Rob. As a non-Mormon immigrant living in SW Utah for two years now, you accurately described what we've seen and experienced.

If we didn't like it and weren't able to come to terms with the quirks, we wouldn't be here. There seems to be a prevailing willingness to accept the status quo and not question the way things are, especially where any form of institutional authority is concerned, and not just the church. People here accept all forms of bureaucracy, as well as poor customer service from businesses. Almost all newcomers comment on the generally poor customer service around here, despite a very competitive business environment. It doesn't make sense.

No disrespect intended toward the Scouts, which were a very positive influence on my young life, or the LDS, but living in Utah is like living 24/7/365 in a Boy Scout camp. People look to leaders and a set of rules to guide how they live.

Paul

Awhile back I perused a local free newspaper in Spanish, in which I am moderately literate. In a column about Pioneer Day they referred to the Mormons as illegal immigrants, which I assume meant that it was Mexican territory at the time. At least to the Mexicans.

Paul

The son of a friend who went to BYU said that the one thing that bugged him the most was people continually asking him if he was "a member of the church". To which he would reply, "which church?", and get confused looks, as though there was only one church, LDS.

One of my daughter's friends is going to Westminster College which, based on his stories of drinking and debauchery, is about as far from the LDS ideal for behavior as a person could get and still physically be in SLC.

I read somewhere that SLC has one of the largest homosexual populations in the country, per capita. Go figure. They're very militant in Utah.

That's hilarious, and probably very defensible.

Utah was claimed by Mexico, until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, following the Mexican-American War.

Sycamore

That would be Texas..

I remember my first Pioneer Day while working in Utah. I came to work and the place was nearly empty. I was informed it was Pioneer Day, but at that time was clueless as to the significance. We didn't get the day off, but most everyone took leave and made a day of it. From there on, "when in Rome" applied when 7/24 rolled a round...