In 1851, when Brigham Young led a contingent of Utah’s Mormon pioneers to the shore of the Great Salt Lake to celebrate the Fourth of July and unveil the state’s first territorial flag, the first toast of the evening was dedicated to the lake itself.
“To the Great Salt Lake,” the toast, as recorded by the Deseret News, began. “As she has hitherto been oblivious to the birthday of freedom and independence; may she this day be awakened to her sense of duty, and seek by her briny sympathies to preserve the Union, till she shall become a component part thereof, even if she has to pickle it.”
At the time, the capital was known as The City of the Great Salt Lake. It was shortened to Salt Lake City in 1868.
But in the past two years, Dave Shearer, manager of the Great Salt Lake State Park and Marina, and an amateur historian of the lake, says he has sensed a change in the wind. The COVID-19 pandemic and all that has followed has awakened residents to a desire for a closer connection to nature, and the simultaneous water crisis has prompted calls to preserve and expand opportunities for locals to experience the state’s natural wonders.
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