Setting the Record Straight on Utah Myths ...

From myths about its physical features to stories concerning legendary pioneer Brigham Young, there are plenty of misconceptions about the state of Utah.
Here’s a look at “Utah Facts 101,” an attempt to dismiss or substantiate various ideas and facts about the state, its history, terrain and population:
• Bankruptcy: Utah leads the nation in personal bankruptcies.
False. The Beehive State isn‘t even in the top five anymore as Nevada, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan and Alabama claim the most now. (However, back seven years ago to 2003, Utah was ranked first.)
• Bear Lake is one of the deepest lakes in the West and has a bottomless abyss with a monster lurking in it.
Fear not the next time you go swimming, it’s false. It’s only 210 feet deep when full (of water, not bears) and likely below the 200-foot mark in the current drought. (Crater Lake is 1,949 feet deep, Lake Tahoe is 1,645 and Yellowstone Lake is 400 feet deep.) As for the monster, well, it hasn’t been substantiated. But just in case, watch your toes while water skiing.
• Bear River is the nation’s longest river that doesn’t empty into an ocean.
True. Some 500 miles cross through three states. It doesn’t have a monster, either.
Birth rate: Utah does have the highest rate in the nation, but it has fallen in recent years.
True. More Utahns are born here than anywhere else. And U.S. citizens, too — about 21 babies born per 1000 people, though the rate has been falling in recent years under a bad economy.
• Brigham Young famous comment No. 1: Did he really say, “What a withered wasteland!” when entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847? Of course not. How about: “This is the Place”? (Question mark for our question, not his statement.)
Sort of. The second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints specifically said, “This is the right place. Drive on.” The condensed version just fit better in headlines.
• Brigham Young famous comment No. 2: Did he really say that any unmarried man older than age 25 was a “menace to society” or was he referring only to his great-great-great-grandson, Steve Young?
President Young only said he wanted every man in the land older than 18 to take a wife. It was Elder George Q. Cannon, an LDS Church apostle, who said in 1878: “I am firmly of the opinion that a large number of unmarried men, over the age of 24 years, is a dangerous element in any community.”
• Brigham Young’s famous hearse: It sits in front of the Haunted Mansion at California’s Disneyland, right? (See the photo at the beginning of this blog.)You know, you’ve had your picture taken next to Goofy there, right?
Completely untrue. (The hearse, not the photo.) President Young didn’t have a hearse, according to LDS historian Glen Leonard. He was carried on a slab by other church leaders from the Tabernacle to his grave site. (And, no, the slab isn’t at Disneyland, either.)
• Cain is really Bigfoot: Oh yeah, and he lives in the Wasatch Mountains.
Purely conjecture. This stems from a story on pages 127-128 of Spencer W. Kimball’s “Miracle of Forgiveness,” in which an early LDS apostle, David W. Patten, meets a strange, dark, tall and hairy man who identifies himself as the original Cain from the Book of Genesis. The Bigfoot/Cain idea originated in 1980 following apparent Bigfoot sightings in South Weber.
• Cola/caffeine drinks: Many are under the assumption that the consumption of cola/caffeine drinks are against the LDS Church’s Word of Wisdom and that’s why you can’t find one of these “hard” drinks at Brigham Young University. Others believe Brother Jones saw a church leader drink a Pepsi during a talk once so it’s OK.
Truth is, the church has no official cola/caffeine drink position, according to its new General Handbook of Instructions, issued in 2010. It simply advises against consuming drinks that contain harmful ingredients or which may be addictive (not including milk or red punch).
• Department stores were invented here: Many claim the late ZCMI, or Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution, was the nation’s first department store and that Brigham Young still has a suit on layaway.
Yes and no. A century before selling out to Meier & Frank in 2001, ZCMI opened in 1867 and was dedicated to giving local merchants a way to sell their stuff for low prices. President Young actually bought his suits at Mr. Mac’s. (OK, not really.)
• Eagle Scouts flock here: Does Utah really produce more Eagle Scouts than any other state?
It’s true, Scout’s honor. Almost three times as many boys earn the award in Utah than the national average. And that’s not counting all the “Life” Scouts who were only two merit badges away. The National Boy Scout office confirmed Utah is still No. 1 back in earlyt 2010.
• Electric traffic lights: It’s a Utahn’s fault that we get stuck at red lights so often.
Could be. According to some accounts, the first traffic light (a birdhouse-type doohickey) was invented by Salt Lake City policeman Lester Wire in 1912. (Here’s hoping a Utahn will discover synchronized lights before 2012.)
• Elevation: Utah is higher (we’re talking sea level here) than any other state in the nation, even higher than Colorado, Alaska and that patch of grass where they held Woodstock.
Bingo. Based on county high points at 11,226 feet above sea level. Utah also has more peaks higher than 10,000 feet than any other state. Even Iowa. That’s why it is life elevated here, though various computerized programs will still support that Colorado is No. 1.
• Flunking the final exam: Perhaps you’ve heard the story or a version of it: Students at either BYU or the University of Utah pass by a beggar seeking assistance on the way to a final exam for an LDS Institute of Religion class on Christ’s life. No one helps the man, actually an actor, and so they all flunk the class.
Jan Harold Brunvand, U. folklore expert, said the story can’t be verified and it also meets two other parameters of urban legends by teaching a moral and being told with slight variations. In other words, they all failed Institute for other reasons.
• Great Salt Lake: It’s so salty, you can walk on it.
False. It’s so stinky sometimes, you can’t get near enough to even try. Only brine shrimp without use of olfactory senses dare go near. But it is the largest salt lake in North America and is three to five times saltier than the ocean (depending, of course, on the chef’s tastes). It’s also the largest lake west of the Mississippi River. (You can float like a cork in some places of the lake, where the salt content is so high.)
• Hunting is a no-no: Some factions believe hunting is against the teachings of the LDS Church, and not because of the unsightly orange apparel.
False. Some past church leaders, like President Joseph F. Smith, taught that animals or birds should not be killed unless they are needed for food. However, a 1979 official church statement said the decision on whether to hunt or fish is left up to the individual. The church is only against the unnecessary and wasteful slaughter of animals and not against hunting or fish and game control.
• Hypnotism is a no-no: You are not supposed to let someone tell you in a monotone voice, “You are getting sleepy” or allow them to make you act like a chicken at a comedy club. It’s against LDS Church doctrine, right?
Partially true. “The use of hypnosis under professional supervision for the treatment of diseases or mental disorders is a question to be determined by competent medical authorities. Church members should not participate in hypnosis for the purposes of demonstrations for entertainment,” a 1999 official LDS Church statement said.
• Ice cream consumption: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream more than anybody else — that’s the common conception at least.
Sorry, Salt Lake City. Portland, Ore., St. Louis and Seattle comprise the top three ice cream consumers. And Utah is not one of the top five producers of ice cream. (This is unacceptable. Hungry, prideful Utahns unite and do something about this — at Leatherby’s and Cold Stone!)
• Jell-O consumption: I Jell-O, you Jell-O . . . uh, doesn’t work as well, but another common conception is that Utah slurps down more wiggly, jiggly gelatin than anyone.
It’s true: Utahns consume Jell-O at twice the national average. No wonder Bill Cosby likes us so much.
• KFC should’ve been UFC: Grandpas have been claiming for generations that the world’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken started in Salt Lake City.
Grandpa wasn’t just pulling your drumstick. The colonel first cooked up his secret finger-licking good recipe with those yummy original spices at the Harmans Restaurant on 3300 South and State Street in 1952.
• Kids play: With all those children running around McDonald’s playlands across the Beehive State, there’s no doubt this place has the most youngsters in the country.
Sure enough. The mean age in Utah is still the lowest in the nation.
• Mount Timpanogos: Not only is it supposedly the highest peak in the Wasatch Mountains, but a really large woman made its peak her final resting spot.
False. Mount Nebo is the tallest at 11,928 feet. Timp registers in at a second-highest 11,750. As for Sleeping Beauty, we won’t know until a really big Prince Charming gives her a smooch.
• Ogden City’s secret tunnels: Legend has it that a vast network of underground tunnels exists below historic 25th Street.
There are some intriguing basements under some of the old bars of the city’s “Two Bit Street,” but there’s no current evidence of widespread tunnels, though a few connections logically might have existed to aid bootlegging traffic and sneaking into Wildcat sporting events.
(Salt Lake City does have plenty of connecting tunnels under the LDS Church campus.)
• Radio stations: The Salt Lake radio airwaves are more crowded than anywhere else.
Believe it. You can tune into as many stations in Salt Lake as Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. (By the way, it only seems like they synchronize their commercials.) Salt Lake also has as many or more sports talk radio stations than any othher market too.
• Rattlesnakes, westward ho! Is it a tall tale, or do Salt Lake County rattlers really migrate each spring from the Wasatch Mountain foothills to the west desert?
This is unfounded. Different snakes live in different locations and can’t travel that far — not even through secret underground passages.
• Salt Lake City will be wickedest: Some claim an LDS Church prophecy predicts this lovely Deseret will become the wickedest den of sin, a downright Soddom and Gomorrah.
Not quite. The actual prophecy made by Heber C. Kimball, an LDS apostle in Brigham Young’s time, states that Salt Lake City will be “classed among the wicked cities of the world.” (This is good news for some.)
• Television birthplace: Thanks to hometown boy Philo T. Farnsworth, Utahns were first to be swamped with infomercials and reality shows.
It is true, at least the part about Farnsworth inventing the TV in 1927.
• The Three Nephites: Various stories around Utah credit these three “translated beings” from Book of Mormon times for performing modern-day miracles.
However, Elder James E. Talmage, an early LDS leader, said the Three Nephites would be the most overworked of all individuals on the basis of all the feats being attributed to them.
• U.S. Constitution: It will “hang by a thread,” according to one LDS prophecy of the last days, won’t it?
Joseph Smith indeed made this prophecy, though later recollections by other church leaders indicated it may or may not be saved, depending on if God wants it saved.
• The Vanishing Hitchhiker: An elderly man was picked up off the side of the road and began warning the people in the vehicle they should have adequate food storage. Then, suddenly, he vanished from the back seat in a ghostly manner.
Brunvand, University of Utah folktale expert, believes the LDS tale comes from prevalent non-LDS stories of similar, but never substantiated, occurrences. That he was carrying a “Kolob or bust” sign should’ve been a clue this was an urban legend.
• Wasatch Mountains: They run from Nephi to Brigham City, or do they?
Actually, they go from Nephi to Soda Springs, Idaho, a 220-mile distance, and include several “fingers,” including the Wellsville Mountains.
• Wellsville Mountains: Some claim the steepest mountains in the world are west of Wellsville.
That story’s on a slippery slope, according to Donald Currey, chairman of the U. geography department, who labels this steepest claim as “purely rhetorical.” Although they are steep and very narrow in the Sherwood Hills area, there’s no known formula for determining steepness. At a maximum height of 9,372 feet, they are also far shorter than many other ranges.
Adapted/updated from July 23, 2003 Deseret News story by Lynn Arave and Jody Genessy

"Great Stone Face": Obscure Utah Treasure For Mormons

 

DOES a likeness of Joseph Smith Jr., first president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, exist in the vast Millard County deseret, southwest of Delta?

Some believe so.

On a remote hillside in Utah's Sevier Desert, about four miles southwest of Deseret and some 17 miles southwest of Delta, rises a craggy volcanic outcrop. For almost seven decades, area residents and visitors have been attracted to the formation.

In it, they can discern the outlines of a man's features: head, brow, nose, mouth and even perhaps a high collar.

Welcome to the "Great Stone Face," or the "Guardian of Deseret," or "Keeper of the Desert." From a certain angle, notes the book "A History of Millard County," a 1999 entry in the Utah Centennial County History Series, "some see a resemblance to LDS Church founder Joseph Smith."

This remains a still seldom visited outdoor treasure for Mormons.
The Great Stone Face was originally called "Guardian of the Deseret" by Millard County newspapers during the 1920s, the era when it first claimed local fame as a tourist destination.
(Part of that reference is for the nearby town of Deseret.)

"Many Mormons see an uncanny resemblance of this naturally carved formation to profile pictures of church founder Joseph Smith," Millard County's official tourism site www.millardcounty.com reads.

Whether or not it is partly the power of suggestion, there definitely is a face to be spotted here in the rocks, though some may argue whose face.

Visitors have to decide that for themselves at the site, about 150 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

The rock pillar sits some 150 feet above the Sevier Desert floor amid a field of lava rock and sagebrush, with a view to Notch Peak to the west.

A steep scramble along a 400-yard-long trail takes hikers to the base of the monument over loose rock. A rugged path, outlined by lava rocks, marks the way.

Indian petroglyphs dating back about 1,000 years are found in the general area just north of the Great Stone Face. These markings are now highlighted by a new sign.

--To reach this natural wonder, travel to Delta and then go southwest on U.S. 6/50 about five miles and turn south on state Route 257.

Then travel about six miles south on S.R. 257 to a signed turnoff to the west (right).

Go west on the gravel road and travel for almost six miles to the north edge of the black lava beds. The gravel road — passable by cars in dry weather, though there are washboard ruts in the road in places and three cattleguards to cross — loops around the west side of the hill and ends at a small parking area. There is no admission fee. 

The petroglyphs are located just a few hundred yards before the parking lot and feature their own sign.
These inscriptions were jokingly called the first edition of the Deseret News back in the 1920s and 1930s by Millard County newspapers.

Hike south up the hillside, looking for the dominant rock. Those who can't or don't want to hike can still see the Great Stone Face from a distance, best viewed with binoculars.

This is a moderately strenuous hike up the hill side.

(The accompanying photos show the Great Stone Face, as well as the petyroglyphs sign.)

For more information on the Great Stone Face, go to:

http://www.millardcounty.com/places-to-see/great-stone-face.html

(Modified, but originally presented in the Deseret News,  May 13, 2010, by Lynn Arave.)

Last Visit To The Utah Noodle Parlor in Ogden: Closed for Years Now

I made my last visit to Ogden's Utah Noodle Parlor on Sept. 27, 2012.
The restaurant, 3019 Washington Blvd., closed its doors for good Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012.
It was a 60-plus-year-run for the Chinese restaurant and it was the last of about four historic Chinese eateries that were in downtown Ogden starting in the 1950s. Utah Noodle was the last of the four to shut down.
(Star, Bamboo and China Nite were the other three similar Ogden restaurants.)
Utah Noodle opened just after World War II on Grant Avenue, probably in late 1945, meaning it has been around for about 67 years (despite the sign in the restaurant saying just 60 years). It moved to its Washington Blvd. location in the 1960s.
 According to one of the workers, Utah Noodle is being closed because no one in the family would take over its operations. All of its management are in their 80s now. Two nephews who were interested in keeping it going, couldn't, because of health reasons. The original family owners died in the 1990s.
During my last visit, my wife and I both thought our food was as good as always, though the place had went somewhat downhill in recent years and had sported a for sale sign for about a month.
 Surprisingly, at 4 p.m. on Sept. 27, it was crowded. Only a few tables were open and about 55 patrons were eating there at the time. It was a long, 40-minute wait, for our food, probably because there was so many takeout orders going out the door.

As one man was overheard to say to waitress near my table, "I've been coming here since before you were born."
After the Ogden Standard-Examiner runs a story on Utah Noodle closing, later this week, I'd hate to be in line to go there on Friday or Saturday.
I'd say Utah Noodle had its peak in the 1990s.
I also believe the restaurant was indeed inconsistent during the past decade. It also didn't promote itself and many of its most loyal of customers died, or ended up in rest homes and were not replaced by a new generation.
In fact, the west seating area of the restaurant was never used in its final years, for lack of business.
The place was always closed on Monday and infamous in my family for closing during several weeks of the year, with little regularity and usually when my family was planning on eating there.
One thing Utah Noodle had in common with my family was that its paneling inside is identical to what's on the wall in my basement family room and hall. My wife's family also went there a lot in the 1980s and the 1990s for extended family meals.

UPDATE: May 2020: Almost 8 years after closing down, the old building that housed Utah Noodle is still vacant ...

Media Fallacy: Climbing is Not Hiking

Some things never change.
Often on mountain rescues, the media -- TV, radio and newspapers -- interchange hiking and climbing as if they are exactly the same thing.
This often leads to misleading representation about where a rescue was located.
Example: September of 2012. Several climbers require a very difficult rescue on what the media identifies as Willard Peak, north of Ogden
For several days after, I ponder how Willard Peak, as craggy as it is, could require such a technical rescue effort.
Finally, it is revealed in the media that the rescue actually took place on the London spire, a technical climbing area well below the actual summit of Willard Peak.
So, these 2 men were not really hikers, they were climbers and ill prepared at that.
Hiking is a sport that uses trails and does not require the use of ropes, cables or anything technical. You walk to hike.
Scrambling is kind of in between hiking and climbing, but still requires no special equipment.
Climbing is a technical sport that uses ropes, handholds, etc. to traverse a very steep area.
You might have to hike a ways to begin a climb, but the two are not the same, or interchangable.
The photo below shows the final climb up Mt. Olympus, east of Salt Lake City. It is not a pure hike, since the last few hundred yards are a scramble up a steep rock face, relying on crevices and foot holes in the rock.

The Utah Town That Isn't In Utah!

Many times jokes are made about Park City and/or Moab not really being Utah towns, based on their social and religious differences with most other municipalities in the Beehive State.
However, the one single town in Utah that truly isn't in Utah is Navajo Mountain.
Although this town's trading post, schools, Navajo Tribal office and U.S. Post Office are all at least three to five miles inside the Utah border, that's all there is to Utah about it.
The vast majority of vehicles you will spot in Navajo Mountain sport Arizona license plates.
The area code there is 928, Arizona based.
Also, the U.S. Post Office there states Arizona, instead of Utah.
Navajo Mountain is in southeastern Utah, with Page, Arizona, as the nearest town of significant size.
To reach this community, you have to travel deep into Arizona by way of Page or Monument Valley. Then, between the small Navajo towns of Kaibito and Shonto, just off highway 98, you go north into Utah.
So, the only access to this town is from Arizona. Hence, likely why Arizona dominates this Utah community.
Sitting on the southeast corner of Navajo Mountain, a free-standing, huge, whale looking kind of mountain that rises to 10,388 feet above sea level.
The photos below show: 1. a doctored sign near the community of Navajo Mountain; 2. what it looks like on the top of Navajo Mountain, looking north to Lake Powell; and 3. how rough and rugged the jeep road is up Navajo Mountain.

"Navajos consider Navajo Mountain as a sacred area, and ascending it is forbidden," as stated on the official Navajo Tribe recreation Web site,
http://www.navajonationparks.org/permits.htm
Notwithstanding, myself and several friends did officially aquire outdoor permits from the Navajo Mountain Tribal Office and visited its summit in 2005.
Although I had verbal permission days earlier from the area's tribal president to visit Navajo Mountain's summit, it took the explanation of a bet I had with my two buddies that you could see Rainbow Bridge with your naked eye from the top and north side of the Navajo Mountain Summit, to get them to issue us permits.
I did win the bet, as you can easily spot Rainbow Bridge from on top.
A rugged, narrow, winding jeep road accesses the summit of the mountain.
There are some cell towers on top of Navajo Mountain, so it could be argued it is not as sacred to the Native Americans as it used to be.
In fact, boating or camping on the south end of Lake Powell, you likely wont' have any cell phone service unless you can see Navajo Mountain -- a line of sight kind of thing.
Navajo Mountain was originally known as Paiute Mountain until about 1933.
It remains a mysterious place, full of solitude and solace.
The mountain domninates the area landscape and I'm very thanful I was lucky enough to visit it and enjoy its spectacular landscape.

Where's the Lost Rhoads Mine?

                       Old cabins are sometimes associated with old mines....

THE Rhoads Mine is more than a Utah pioneer legend or fanciful story.
I believe it truly exists.

But, like Bigfoot, the Three Nephites, or the Lost Ten Tribes, it might be next to impossible to find.
If you are not up to speed on what the mine is, click on the link below, as it accesses a site that reprints one of the best single articles ever written on the Rhoads mine, a story by one of my friends and past colleagues, Twila Van Leer.
Most people up to speed on the Rhoads Mine seem to believe it exists somewhere in the Uinta Mountains.
I'm now leaning to a different location, further south.
I'm suspecting it may reside within the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.
The place is off limits to just about anyone, except some Native Americans.
It is rugged territory and seems the perfect place to hide such a feature.
With the Book Cliffs and the Green River on its western boundary, it is a secretive and forbidding place.
There have been some reported Bigfoot sightings inside the reservation too, but none can enter to check them out either.
I've had imaginative dreams of finding the Rhoads Mine in the High Uintas, but my dreams need to change to this reservation, because if you go by odds that's where I'm betting  it is.
Many states have legends of Spanish gold, or mines. However, in Utah's case,the gold for the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple came from somewhere and that's the Rhoads Mine.
-And, there may be 8 or more total lost gold mines in the Uintas, or the surrounding area!



http://www.utahgold.org/Ugpcjan2008.htm

Mormons Before the 1950s: Crosses OK?

I found many old vintage photographs that I had never seen before in my mother's endless amount of stuff.
One picture in particular (and reproduced here) was dated 1946 and showed her entire family -- the Ray and Lida Rigby Family from Grace, Idaho.
What caught my eye the most was that my future Aunt Maurine, in the lower right of the picture, is wearing a large cross.
This confirms what I had already suspected: Mormons wearing crosses before the 1950s was OK and not frowned upon.
It was the 1950s when apparently both wearing crosses and having facial hair began to be shunned in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(We're talking church policy here, not necessarily doctrine, in both practices.)
Wearing a cross in the LDS Church today is practically viewed as evil. Church leaders, and in some stakes even just an ordinary church member, having facial hair today is frowned on.
However, realize that it wasn't always that way for both practices.
Realize that a cross symbol is NOT evil. It is mentioned a lot in the Bible as a symbol of the Saints.
Now, it wouldn't be my symbol of choice. If I could create it, I'd personally choose to wear an empty sepulchre (tomb), instead of a cross, to celebrate the resurrection and an empty grave, instead of just the death of Jesus Christ.
I doubt Joseph Smith ever saw a cross on a church in his day, as Protestant churches didn't adopt the cross as a symbol until the decades after his death. Initially, Protestant churches viewed the cross as purely Catholic, something they wanted to stay away from.

-President Joseph Fielding Smith discussed crosses and LDS Church members in the March 1961 Improvement Era (forerunner to today's Ensign Magazine).
"Because our Savior died on the cross, the wearing of crosses is to most Latter-day Saints in very poor taste and inconsistent to our worship," President Smith wrote.
Later in the article he stated: "We may be definitely sure that if our Lord had been killed with a dagger or with a sword, it would have been very strange indeed if religious people of this day would have graced such a weapon by wearing it and adorning it because it was by such a means that our Lord was put to death."
President Smith stressed having a humble, contrite spirit and a sincere prayer of gratitude is a far better means of worship for our Savior's sacrifice and atonement that to adorn the cross.
He also said Church member do not question the sincerity of other religions who wear crosses, but it is simply a custom that does not appeal to LDS Church members.
-That's especially true because LDS Doctrine teaches that by far the most suffering of Christ took place in the Garden of Gethsemane and NOT on the cross, since the Garden is where the Savior took upon himself the sins of the world.