The Kearns Building was named after a former U.S. senator from Utah named Thomas Kearns (1862–1918). Kearns worked his way up from the low-labor position of “mucker” in the Park City mines, finally striking it rich in his Silver King mine. Active in politics, he ran a successful bid for the U.S. Senate. Aware of his lack of education, he once confessed, “As you know, I am no orator. I am but a plain, blunt business man. What I lack in oratory I will try to make up in action.”
East entrance to the Kearns Building. David M. Whitchurch
Kearns was not reelected, failing to fi nd the political support he needed within the state. As a parting shot in 1905, he launched a bitter attack from the fl oor of the Senate against the LDS Church. Kearns had purchased the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper with his partner David Keith in 1901, and bitter anti-Mormon rhetoric filled the pages of the paper from 1905 until 1911, when the tone significantly mellowed. National magazines picked up on the Tribune charges and published scandalous articles about the Church during this same period. Publications in Britain also got in on the fray, making the first decade of the 1900's a difficult one for Church members because of their reputation in the eye of the general public.
The Kearns Building sits on the west side of Main Street, south of Temple Square. David M. Whitchurch
Kearns’s large and ornate Salt Lake mansion, given to the state by his wife, eventually became the official residence of the governor of the state of Utah. In a tribute published by the Salt Lake Tribune at his death, Kearns was called “a man of great natural ability and force of character . . . large in stature and great in soul. . . . He loved Salt Lake and was proud of the fact that he had been an important factor in its upbuilding.”
Thomas Kearns became a wealthy mining executive and then a senator from Utah. Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The Silver King Mines plant used a gigantic flywheel, cables, and belts to haul ore out of the mine. Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The original Deseret News building sat facing South Temple Street,
where the Joseph Smith Memorial Building stands today. Note the “Deseret Evening News” sign over the gate in front of the printing office.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The Deseret News is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church first became involved in the newspaper business in June 1832, when W. W. Phelps published the Evening and Morning Star in Independence, Missouri.
Even after anti-Mormon mobs broke into the Phelps’s home and destroyed the press in 1833, the Church continued to publish various newspapers in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. Three years after the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, the first edition of the Deseret News came off the press on June 15, 1850. Nearly 150 years later, on May 28, 1997, the new Deseret News Building was dedicated in Salt Lake City. This nine-story, circular building is constructed to represent a newspaper.
The logo found at the top of the building is identical to the masthead in the daily newspaper, and the windows are mathematically designed to the exact measurements of the columns in the daily newspaper. In addition to the unique exterior, the interior contains the latest technology. Inspiration for the Deseret News came in 1846 as the Mormon pioneers were camped on the west bank of the Missouri River at Winter Quarters.
As Brigham Young was contemplating the Saints’ future in the West, he recognized the importance of maintaining contact with the outside world. In the spring of 1847, President Young requested that William W. Phelps purchase a press and then transport it to the Mormon settlement in the West.
Painting of Willard Richards inside the Pioneer Memorial Museum.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
Later that summer, Phelps borrowed sixty-one dollars from Alexander Badlam to purchase a Ramage press in Boston.
The new building for the Desert News is located one block south and one-half block east of the earlier building. From pioneer days, circulation has increased to more than one hundred fifty thousand readers every day. The Saturday edition includes an additional section titled Church News, which also circulates separately throughout the world.
David M. Whitchurch
Howard Egan, a future Pony Express agent, was designated to transport the press to the Salt Lake Valley in an oxen-pulled wagon. He arrived in August of 1849. Shortly thereafter, Brigham Young appointed Willard Richards as the first editor of the Deseret News. Then in June 1850, the first issue appeared, containing news that was both momentous and trivial.
Although only two hundred copies were produced in the first printing, Brother Richards envisioned a bright future for the newspaper, selecting the motto “Truth and Liberty.”
From 1854 to 1856 the Deseret News was published in the Tithing Office.
Utah State Historical Society
The Pioneer Memorial Museum is a fascinating place
to explore Mormon Church Pioneer History
David M. Whitchurch
Built and maintained by the International Society, Daughters of Utah Pioneers (founded in 1901), this structure was built to preserve the history, artifacts, and landmarks of Utah pioneer ancestors.
There are hundreds of examples of beds, cribs, and chairs in the museum.
Multiple floors house the innumerable donated and collected artifacts.
The objects belonged to memorable Church figures as well as lesser known pioneers of the past.
John P. Starrs
This wagon was brought to Utah by Johnston’s Army in the late 1850s.
The running gear is original, but the top part was burned,
then later restored when placed in the museum.
John P. Starrs
One could spend from a half an hour (for a quick walk-through) to a full day or two (for an in-depth historical study) here.
Furniture from the home of President Heber C. Kimball
gives an idea of the comforts of home following the earliest pioneer times.
John P. Starrs
The Museum has been recognized as one of the world’s largest collections of nineteenth century pioneer artifacts. It contains Mormon memorabilia, period furniture, and photographs.
The Pioneer Memorial Museum displays clothing typical of early days in Salt Lake City.
John P. Starrs
Carriages like this were common conveyances in Salt Lake City until the coming of the automobile.
David M. Whitchurch
The cane in the center with the knob at the end is believed to be the cane
Willard Richards used to ward off guns at the Carthage Jail doorway when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed.
David M. Whitchurch
Brigham Young’s uniquely bent cane is also on display in the Museum
Modern rendition of the signs that marked all the ZCMI stores.
David M. Whitchurch
The cast iron façade was eventually incorporated into the modern downtown mall located where ZCMI once stood.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh
Preserved on main street is the original cast-iron façade of Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, sometimes claimed to be the first department store in America (organized in March 1868). The store began as a response to price gouging in Salt Lake City. During the early pioneer days, basic commodities from the eastern United States were scarce and expensive because they had to be hauled by ox team from Missouri. Aware of this predicament, various Salt Lake merchants took advantage of the situation and asked exorbitant prices for their goods. At one time the price for a sack of sugar rose to one hundred dollars, and something had to be done about it.
President Brigham Young’s answer was to encourage the Saints to organize cooperatives. Some private store owners joined the cooperative movement, and some communities organized their cooperatives from scratch. Soon there were 146 Church sponsored branches of ZCMI throughout the territory, all offering the same merchandise for the same prices. Each ZCMI establishment had the standard “Holiness to the Lord” sign over the front door. The Saints benefited by lowering costs and having a trustworthy outlet to sell their goods.
For a time, most businesses owned by Church members became part of the ZCMI businesses, numerous private store owners also joined Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution. Note the small ZCMI signs on each store.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The large department-store ZCMI building on Main Street, located behind the façade, was constructed in three sections between 1876 and 1901. During the more than one hundred years following its institution,various wings were added as the cooperative expanded and modernized (modernizations included electricity, cash registers, and elevators).
Previously, coal oil lamps lit the building and money was dropped into black kettles, which were periodically gathered by clerks and taken into offi ces, where the money was counted and recorded. The old façade has been preserved and will be part of the rising City Creek Center. It is a beautiful historic landmark and reminder of the ingenuity and industry of the early Utah settlers.
A re-creation of the old ZCMI interior found in the Pioneer Memorial Museum, Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
David M. Whitchurch
In 2000 the Church sold all its ZCMI holdings to Meier and Frank, bringing an end to Church involvement in competitive retail trade.
Delivery wagons line up on Main Street in front of ZCMI.
C. R. Savage courtesy of Richard K. Winters
Homesite of Jedediah M. Grant
The lot where the south end of the ZCMI façade now stands was the homestead of Jedediah and Rachel Grant. Jedediah M. Grant was the first mayor of Salt Lake City and served in the First Presidency as Second Counselor to President Brigham Young from 1854 to 1856. When Jedediah
died in 1856 at the age of forty, Rachel was left to raise their son, Heber, who was only ten days old. Rachel never remarried, and President Young took a special interest in the young, fatherless
son of his counselor and friend.
Heber was a frequent guest at the Lion House, just a halfblock northeast of the Grant homestead at the intersection of Main Street and South Temple. “I was almost as familiar in the homes of Brigham Young as I was in the home of my mother,” Heber explained. “I knelt down time and time again in his home in the Lion House at family prayers, as a child and as a young man.
I bear witness that as a little child, upon more than one occasion, because of the inspiration of the Lord to Brigham Young while he was supplicating God for guidance, I have lifted my head, turned and looked at the place where Brigham Young was praying, to see if the Lord was not there."
Home where President Heber J. Grant lived as a boy located near where the ZCMI façade now stands.
L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
Heber J. Grant was the first President of the Church born in Utah. He liked to share stories from his youth about things that occurred on or near this lot. He presided over the Church from 1918 to 1945, which included the years of the Great Depression and World War II. He used examples from his life about overcoming poverty to inspire the Saints to climb out of despair and the difficult conditions that surrounded them.
“My mother was keeping boarders at the time for a living,” he explained to the Saints, in reference to his youth, “and I shined their boots until I saved a dollar, which I invested in a base ball. I spent hours and hours throwing the ball at a neighbor’s barn (Edwin D. Woolley’s,) which caused him to refer to me as the laziest boy in the Thirteenth Ward. Often my arm would ache so that I could scarcely go to sleep at night. But I kept on practicing, and finally succeeded in getting into the second nine of our club. Subsequently I joined a better club, and eventually played in the nine that won the championship of the Territory. Having thus made good my promise to myself, I retired from the base ball arena.”
Heber J. Grant (center) with his Red Stocking Baseball teammates, who were Utah Territorial Champions in August 1877.
L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
As illustrated in President Grant’s story, he adopted a slogan in his life: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased."
A counselor in the First Presidency and the first mayor of Salt Lake City before his untimely death in 1856. His property was located on the block of the ZCMI building immediately south of South Temple Street.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
Horses and carriages in front of ZCMI.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
Ute Indians in front of the ZCMI at the Eagle Emporium building on Main Street in Salt Lake City. C. R. Savage courtesy of Richard K. Winters
Example of first telegraph equipment used.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The telegraph office was located on the east side of Main Street, south of Temple Square. Daughters of Utah Pioneers
The overland telegraph monument marks the site where the transcontinental telegraph lines met, stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans. The telegraph connection to Salt Lake City was completed on October 18, 1861, and provided the Saints with the ability to maintain contact with the outside world. It also provided much needed employment to the Latter-day Saints who supplied poles, subsistence, and transportation while constructing approximately five hundred miles of line. During the Civil War, two units of the Nauvoo Legion protected Overland Telegraph lines. This great innovation also allowed Mormon wagon trains to communicate their progress and, when necessary, to request the help of relief parties. Completion of the telegraph led to the demise of the Pony Express.
Marker on Main Street showing location of original telegraph office.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh
The First Telegram
Recognizing the impact of the transcontinental telegraph line, the Sons of Utah Pioneers erected this marker in its honor on October 18, 1955. The marker contains the first messages sent and the following inscription:
At this location on October 18, 1861, stood the telegraph pole, shown on above plaque on which telegraph wires were joined which spanned a continent and united two oceans.
On that date the first two telegrams transmitted were as follows.
“Hon J. H. Wade. Great Salt Lake City, U.T.
President of the Pacific Telegraph Company
Oct. 18, 1861—Cleveland, Ohio
Sir permit me to congratulate you upon the completion of the overland telegraph line west to this city to commend the energy displayed by yourself and associates in the rapid and successful prosecution of a work so beneficial, and to express the wish that its use may ever tend to promote the true interests of the dwellers upon both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of our continent. Utah has not seceded but is firm for the constitution and laws of our once happy country, and is warmly interested in such useful enterprises as the one so far completed.
Brigham Young.”
The reply was as follows:
“Hon Brigham Young President
Cleveland Oct 19, 1861—Great Salt Lake City:
Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your message of last evening which was every way gratifying, not only in the announcement of the completion of the Pacific telegraph to your enterprising and prosperous city, but that your, the first message to pass over the line should express so unmistakably the patriotism and union-loving sentiments of yourself and people.
With just consideration for your high position and due respect for you personally. I am your obedient servant, J. H. Wade, Pres. Pacific Telegraph Company
G. S. L. City, Oct 18. 1861"
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East entrance to the Kearns Building. 
Thomas Kearns became a wealthy mining executive and then a senator from Utah.
The Silver King Mines plant used a gigantic flywheel, cables, and belts to haul ore out of the mine. 
