Why This Is The Place Heritage Park matters.
This Is The Place Heritage Park is a historic cultural destination where East Bench's Wasatch foothill landscape meets Utah's pioneer settlement history, expansive commemorative sculpture, and the preservation of nineteenth-century Western American life.
Occupying an expansive hillside property at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, This Is The Place Heritage Park stands opposite Utah's Hogle Zoo, with Sunnyside Avenue following its southern boundary and the residential neighborhoods surrounding Foothill Drive descending toward the Salt Lake Valley. The grounds combine terraced lawns, historic village streets, reconstructed residences, agricultural buildings, and substantial monuments within a landscape framed by the Wasatch Mountains. Its principal memorial rises above an open plaza, incorporating expansive granite architecture and bronze figures positioned against panoramic views of the valley. The surrounding Heritage Village contains wooden cabins, adobe buildings, workshops, and commercial establishments arranged along pedestrian streets that evoke Utah's territorial settlements. Winding pathways connect the historic structures with planted areas, outdoor gathering spaces, and elevated viewpoints. The Pioneer Center introduces a substantial indoor exhibition facility, and the surrounding foothills preserve the geographical relationship between the mountain passage and the valley below. The result is an extensive historical landscape whose expansive sculpture, preserved architecture, and reconstructed settlement environments establish a direct connection with Utah's territorial origins.
What defines This Is The Place Heritage Park.
This Is The Place Heritage Park is best known for commemorating the arrival of Latter-day Saint pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley and transforming a consequential mountain entrance into one of Utah's principal institutions devoted to Western American settlement. Indigenous communities occupied the eastern Great Basin for thousands of years before nineteenth-century American migration, with Shoshone, Ute, Goshute, and other peoples maintaining longstanding relationships with the region's valleys, mountains, and waterways. Spanish explorers and Franciscan missionaries Domínguez and Escalante traveled through portions of present-day Utah in 1776, contributing to European knowledge of a region subsequently traversed by fur traders and overland emigrants. The establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830 initiated a religious movement whose members developed settlements in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois before repeated conflict prompted a major westward migration. Following Joseph Smith's death in 1844, Brigham Young emerged as the principal leader of the largest body of church members and directed preparations for settlement beyond the established boundaries of the United States. The pioneer exodus began in February 1846, when emigrants departed Nauvoo, Illinois, and crossed Iowa toward temporary settlements along the Missouri River. Winter Quarters, established near present-day Omaha, became a principal staging ground for the subsequent journey across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Young organized an advance company of 143 men, three women, and two children, which departed in April 1847 and followed the Platte River corridor toward Fort Laramie and South Pass. The company continued southwest through present-day Wyoming and Utah, eventually approaching the Great Salt Lake Basin through the Wasatch Range. On July 21, Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow entered the valley ahead of the main company, surveying the intended settlement area. Additional wagons followed through Emigration Canyon, whose steep slopes and difficult passage had challenged earlier emigrants traveling toward California. On July 24, Brigham Young entered the valley in a wagon driven by Wilford Woodruff, reaching the area commemorated by the park's principal monument. Latter-day Saint tradition associates the occasion with Young's declaration that the valley was the appropriate location for the community's permanent settlement. The emigrants established their principal encampment farther west, beginning the development of a city that became Utah Territory's administrative and commercial center. Their arrival initiated profound changes through irrigation agriculture, urban surveying, religious settlement, and the displacement of Indigenous communities from ancestral lands. The canyon entrance acquired commemorative importance as pioneer migration became central to Utah's public history. In 1917, church historian B. H. Roberts and a group of Boy Scouts erected a wooden marker near the location traditionally associated with Young's declaration. A concrete obelisk replaced the earlier marker in 1921, establishing the first permanent monument within the developing commemorative landscape. The approaching centennial of the pioneer arrival generated plans for an expansive sculptural project during the 1930s. Mahonri Mackintosh Young, a grandson of Brigham Young and an established American sculptor, received the commission to create a memorial honoring the pioneers and earlier inhabitants and explorers of the Great Basin. His career encompassed sculpture, painting, and graphic art, including works devoted to labor, athletics, and historical subjects. In 1939, Young received a $50,000 commission and began developing the monument at Weir Farm in Connecticut with assistance from sculptor Spero Anargyros. The project combined granite architecture with bronze statuary and relief sculpture, creating an extensive composition interpreting the region's history through prominent historical figures. The completed memorial measured sixty feet high and eighty-four feet wide, incorporating fifteen commemorative plaques alongside figures representing Indigenous peoples, explorers, mountain men, and pioneer leaders. President George Albert Smith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated the monument on July 24, 1947, during the centennial celebration of the advance company's arrival. A group of private citizens acquired substantial surrounding acreage in 1957 and transferred the property to the state, protecting the hillside from commercial development and establishing the foundation for a larger historical institution. Construction of a visitor center in 1959 introduced an interpretive facility near the monument, including artwork by Utah painter Lynn Fausett. Legislative appropriations during the early 1970s initiated the transformation of the commemorative landscape into a living-history museum devoted to Utah's territorial communities. The project expanded through the acquisition, relocation, and reconstruction of buildings associated with nineteenth-century settlements across the state. Brigham Young's Forest Farmhouse was relocated from the Forest Dale area in 1975, preserving an architectural connection with the agricultural enterprises developed by early Salt Lake Valley settlers. Subsequent additions introduced residences, workshops, commercial buildings, and replicas of important community institutions. A major expansion between 1992 and 1995 included the relocation and reconstruction of the Manti Z.C.M.I. store, connecting the village with the cooperative mercantile organization established under Young's leadership in 1868. The Utah Statehood Centennial Commission adopted the park as a legacy project, and the state designated the property This Is The Place State Park in 1996. The Utah Legislature authorized the nonprofit This Is The Place Foundation in 1998, establishing the organizational structure responsible for managing the expanding historical destination. Subsequent developments strengthened the institution's interpretation of western migration, traditional occupations, Indigenous cultural heritage, and pioneer family life. The Pioneer Children's Memorial introduced seventeen large stones honoring 684 children who died during the westward migration, adding a solemn dimension to the park's interpretation of overland travel. The Pioneer Center opened in March 2021, introducing a substantial exhibition facility devoted to the journey and settlement of Latter-day Saint emigrants. This Is The Place Heritage Park represents an extensive effort to preserve Utah's territorial history through expansive sculpture, architectural conservation, historical interpretation, and the reconstruction of early Western American communities.
Heritage Village develops the park's historical program through more than sixty original and reconstructed buildings that establish the physical character of nineteenth-century Utah settlements. Its streets connect domestic residences, religious buildings, agricultural structures, workshops, and commercial establishments, introducing the occupations and institutions that sustained communities across the territory. Costumed interpreters demonstrate traditional trades through historically furnished workshops, connecting preserved architecture with the practical skills required for daily life. Blacksmithing introduces the heating and shaping of iron through a forge and anvil, revealing the importance of metalworking to transportation, agriculture, and construction. Tinsmithing demonstrates the production of household containers and useful objects from thin sheets of metal, and leatherworking introduces the preparation of harnesses, saddles, and equipment essential to animal-powered transportation. The printing shop presents traditional presses and movable type, connecting the village's occupational program with the circulation of information and commercial communication. Woodworking, spinning, and wool carding extend the interpretation into furniture production and household textile manufacturing. Domestic interiors contain period furnishings, cooking implements, and everyday possessions that establish the relationship between household organization and the resources available to frontier settlements. The Brigham Young Farmhouse presents a substantial residential structure associated with the agricultural development of the Salt Lake Valley, introducing a more elaborate domestic environment than the smaller cabins occupied by newly arrived settlers. The reconstructed Heber C. Kimball Home interprets the residence of another prominent early church leader, whose original house occupied a substantial downtown property enclosed by stone walls. The Social Hall replica introduces the theatrical performances, public celebrations, and community gatherings that contributed to territorial social life. A reconstructed mercantile store demonstrates the distribution of manufactured goods and agricultural products through cooperative commercial institutions, with counters, shelving, and traditional merchandise arrangements evoking nineteenth-century retail practices. The Native American Village broadens the historical presentation through structures and cultural activities associated with Indigenous communities whose histories preceded European American settlement. Shoshone tipis and Navajo hogans introduce contrasting architectural responses to mobility, climate, and regional resources. Cultural presentations incorporate storytelling, traditional crafts, and discussions of Indigenous relationships with the surrounding landscape. Agricultural areas contain animals and equipment associated with small farms, connecting food production with the transportation systems and domestic labor of territorial communities. Handcart activities recreate aspects of the physical demands faced by emigrants who transported their possessions across the plains through human-powered conveyances. Gold panning introduces the methods used to separate dense mineral particles from sediment, connecting the park's broader Western history with the mining economy that transformed the Intermountain region. The Treasure House extends this theme through gemstones, geological objects, and activities associated with mineral discovery. Train rides connect the village's dispersed buildings, providing transportation across the extensive grounds and introducing another dimension of the property's historical presentation. The Irrigation Station develops a seasonal recreational environment whose design reflects the water-management systems essential to agriculture in Utah's semiarid climate. Seasonal programming extends the institution's interpretation through Pioneer Day commemorations, traditional craft demonstrations, autumn celebrations, and winter gatherings. Candlelight Christmas introduces lanterns, music, historical activities, and seasonal decorations into the preserved buildings, connecting the village's architectural character with holiday traditions. This Is The Place Heritage Park derives its distinctive character from the integration of historic structures, traditional occupations, Indigenous cultural presentations, agricultural activities, and seasonal programming within the geographical setting of the eastern Salt Lake Valley.
How This Is The Place Heritage Park fits.
This Is The Place Heritage Park works as the starting point for an exploration connecting wildlife conservation, the botanical diversity of the Wasatch foothills, and the scientific interpretation of Utah's extraordinary prehistoric environments.
Begin at Utah's Hogle Zoo, the major zoological institution occupying a hillside property immediately south of the heritage park. The zoo originated through a small animal collection assembled in Liberty Park in 1911, with Salt Lake City formally organizing the institution the following year. James and Mary Hogle donated land near the entrance to Emigration Canyon in 1931, allowing the zoo to relocate into a substantially larger landscape suited to specialized animal habitats. The new institution opened on August 1, attracting 14,000 people during its first day. Subsequent expansion introduced facilities devoted to African wildlife, primates, large carnivores, and species associated with mountainous environments. The Aline W. Skaggs Wild Utah exhibit opened in May 2024, introducing native animals including cougars, desert bighorn sheep, and gray foxes within a three-acre conservation-focused environment. Continue to Red Butte Garden, the University of Utah's botanical institution occupying 100 acres near the entrance to Red Butte Canyon. Its intellectual origins connect with botanist Walter P. Cottam, whose investigations into plant ecology and conservation helped establish the university's early arboretum program. Philanthropist Ezekiel R. Dumke Jr. and other supporters subsequently advanced plans for a permanent public garden, leading to its opening in 1985. The Walter P. Cottam Visitor Center followed in 1994 through support from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation. The developed landscape incorporates a fragrance garden, medicinal garden, rose garden, and extensive collections of plants adapted to Utah's semiarid environment. Its outdoor amphitheater contributes a substantial cultural dimension through seasonal concerts against the surrounding foothills. Conclude at Natural History Museum of Utah, the scientific institution established through legislation enacted by the Utah Legislature in 1962. The museum opened to the public in 1969 within the University of Utah's George Thomas Building, bringing together collections assembled through decades of academic work in archaeology, geology, biology, and paleontology. Its scientific programs developed substantial expertise in the fossil deposits of southern Utah, contributing to discoveries associated with the Late Cretaceous ecosystems of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The institution relocated in November 2011 to the Rio Tinto Center, a copper-clad building designed by Ennead Architects and GSBS Architects. The $102.5 million project introduced expanded galleries, specialized laboratories, and a substantial architectural setting overlooking the Salt Lake Valley. Permanent exhibitions include Past Worlds, Great Salt Lake, Native Voices, and Gems and Minerals, connecting prehistoric organisms, regional geology, Indigenous cultures, and the natural processes that shaped the American West. The progression moves from Utah's Hogle Zoo's wildlife conservation programs through Red Butte Garden's botanical landscapes and culminates at Natural History Museum of Utah, where scientific collections and expansive architecture interpret the region's geological, biological, and human history.
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