And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel ." — Isaiah 11:12
You could make a case that it is the ugliest peak on the Wasatch Range. Even calling it a peak is suspect. A nub would be more like it. A nub with no trees, a few rocks, some sagebrush and dirt.
But give Ensign Peak credit.
If Brigham Young, sick with the fever, hadn't looked out the side of his wagon 153 years ago tomorrow and cast his eyes on the sorry-looking peak to his right, he'd have never said, "This is the right place," and that would have been that, Salt Lake City would have been left to the horsefly.
That was the very peak Joseph Smith had shown him in a vision, said the new Mormon prophet, that was the very peak Isaiah was talking about 4,000 years before in his "tops of the mountains" prophecies, that was the very peak they'd just crossed 1,300 miles — including Wyoming — to find.
To which the faithful followers said, "That peak?"
Don't know where it is?
Go to the middle of Salt Lake's Main Street and look up.
It is the small brown mound above and to the left of the state Capitol. If you squint, a monument is visible on top of the mound, a monument where a flag — an ensign — once waved. But that was many years ago, before the winds and the vandals knocked it down again and again and people got tired of putting it back up.
Now, three flags — three ensigns — fly at a bigger, nicer monument 1,000 feet below the mound, at the Ensign Peak Nature Park & Memorial Gardens. One is the flag of the state of Utah, one is the flag of the United States of America, and one is the flag of the kingdom — the kingdom both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had envisioned establishing at a promised place in the Rockies.
A place, as Brigham Young once described to British writer William Hepworth Dixon, where, if they stayed put, the Mormons could build their temple and live in peace and prosperity.
After being run out of four states in less than 20 years, that had a certain appeal to it.
As his fever lifted soon after his arrival in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, it was the first thing Brigham Young wanted to do. Climb to the top of Isaiah's mountain, see what Isaiah saw.
On Monday, July 26, 1847, he took eight men with him to the vicinity of what is now North Temple Street and City Creek and they started up.
When they reached the top, about midday, they turned to the south and the entirety of the Salt Lake Valley was in their view.
Brigham Young could see it all now, he told the eight with him, he could see it unfolding below him like a crossword puzzle all filled in. Everything was so clear.
The temple would go there, the social hall there, the fields over there, the barns over there. And directly below the peak, on a line so straight you could hang laundry on it, there would be Main Street.
Visionary or just good vision? You be the judge. But soon enough the valley floor swarmed with activity. Main Street was laid out. Roads were built — wide ones. Streams were dammed. Crops were planted. Houses and churches and stores were built. Blocks were sectioned off in 10-acre squares. A fort was erected. Thousands more settlers poured in from the east.
All because of a conical hill believed to be an ensign; believed to be the ensign.
A conical hill that 153 years later still stands, as ugly as ever.
And just below, a prosperous city lies peaceful at its feet.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.