To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Brigham Young's wagon into the Salt Lake Valley, the Semi-Centennial Commission planned to host a spectacular four-day celebration to honor the surviving pioneers. Only one year after Utah's statehood, organizers wanted the Pioneer Jubilee to be “the biggest celebration in the country since the 1893 World’s Fair” and the largest event yet to be seen west of the Mississippi. Over $60,000 was raised in private and public funds in preparations for the Jubilee. Advertised and recognized on a national level (over ten other states contributed funds), the Jubilee served the dual purpose of showing the great advancement of the area in 50 years as well as demonstrating 1847 as the significant founding date of Utah (rather than 1896 statehood). Emphasizing the arrival of Brigham Young in the Territory overshadowed the entrace of Utah into the Union, a milestone that did not occur without significant tension between the federal government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (L.D.S. or Mormons).

In the tradition of pageantry of the 1890s, patriotic themes loom large in the Jubilee: flags, eagles, stars, and stripes can be seen throughout the decorations and souvenirs from the event. The Jubilee, however, has another, parallel set of images in its pageantry: those related to the settling of the area by members of the L.D.S. Church. Beehives and bees for industriousness, sea gulls, Brigham Young, and other significantly Mormon symbols permeate the event. This joint demonstration of patriotism and singularity makes Utah's celebration stand out like no other in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

“ Salt Lake City has perhaps never before been so packed with enthusiastic sightseers. The streets cease to be streets about the time when parade begins – they are rivers of humanity in which the people surge to and fro, here moving rapidly for a stretch in ripples of anticipation toward some happening a block or two away, there forming a whirlpool which moves round and round some striking object of interest … “it is not a time to call up the sagebrush waste, the slinking coyote, the ox team, the dug out and log cabin filled with weather-beaten, sun-burned immigrants dressed in nameless costumes. The eye and the car are full of the present. It is a pageant that people have come to witness, a pageant that bridges the past and the present and is a prophecy of the future.” -- Deseret Evening News (July 21, 1897)

This is Still the Place: The Online Exhibit