Picture the twenty-five-foot bronze monument rising above this sidewalk at Main and South Temple, honoring pioneer-colonizer Brigham Young. This bronzed historical monument was erected in honour of pioneer-colonizer, Utah governor, and LDS Church president Brigham Young, who led the Mormon pioneers into the Utah Territory in 1847. The base of the twenty-five-foot monument carries a small staged history: a bronze figure of an Indian faces east and a bearded fur trapper faces west, figures the text tells us who preceded the Mormon settlers. On the south side is a bronze bas-relief of a pioneer man, woman, and child. Another bronze plaque lists the pioneers who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, and their equipment.
Take a moment to imagine how this work first appeared: it was first displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, stood briefly on Temple Square, then in 1897 was placed centering this intersection and remained here until 1993, when it was moved a few yards north to the spot where you now stand. Sculptor Cyrus Dallin would later revisit the sitting-figure motif in 1914 for the Robbins Memorial Flagstaff in Arlington, Massachusetts. Bronze figures ring the base, an Indian facing east, a fur trapper facing west, a pioneer family in relief.