Deseret Peak is the best-known of the Stansbury Mountain summits and, at 11,031 feet above sea level, is Tooele County's topmost point.
In early pioneer times, Utah was called the "Territory of Deseret," and the Mormon settlers wanted the unusual moniker - from a Book of Mormon term (Ether 2:3) that means "honeybee" - to be official. That effort failed, and Utah became the state's name. Still, the word Deseret remains fairly common today. More than 40 businesses in the Salt Lake Valley alone use it, including the state's first registered business - the Deseret News.Geographic features, however, don't feature the word with quite the proliferation that businesses do, with only about two dozen Utah place names being graced with "Deseret." There's one small town, Deseret, south of Delta. But perhaps the most prominent namesake of the territory's original name is the Stansbury's Deseret Peak.
Interestingly, there are two other Deseret Peaks in Utah. One is about 50 miles north of Tooele's, west of Lakeside in the Newfoundland Mountain range. It tops out a mere 6,984 feet above sea level. Another - 7,510 feet above sea level - is found northwest of Echo Canyon.
While there's no doubt where the Deseret Peak name came from, who first applied the name and when is lost to us.
The "History of Tooele Valley" by Orrin P. Miller simply states the peak was named after the state of Deseret. Two other books, "Utah Place Names" and "Five Hundred Utah Place Names," are equally vague. Speculation is a pioneer resident of Tooele Valley probably first gave the mountain that name.
Today Deseret Peak stands as a fitting natural monument to the pioneers' faith and their beelike industry. Congress is believed not too have favored the Deseret name because it was too akin to the word "desert." Ironically, Deseret Peak is an oasis in the western desert, where insects, animals and plants all flourish in a mountain paradise.
With a little imagination, too, the multifaceted dome of Deseret Peak rising above the Stansburys might just appear to be the top of a beehive. On its summit, wild bees fittingly frequent the flowers there - despite the rarefied air.