Jubilee Parade

Salt Lake City: T.E. Hinshaw & C.L. Joy, Scenic Photographers, 1897. Stereoview [8 cm x 15 cm] on Hinshaw & Joy curved mount. Very good. Gentle overall sun fading. Nice view of the Jubilee Parade with stands of people in the background.

In January 1896, just days after Utah was granted statehood, Utah Governor Heber M. Wells suggested that the new Legislature assign a committee to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Brigham Young's wagon into the Salt Lake Valley, the Semi-Centennial Commission planned to host a spectacular four-day celebration to honor the surviving pioneers. Only one year after Utah's statehood, organizers wanted the Pioneer Jubilee to be "the biggest celebration in the country since the 1893 World's Fair" and the largest event yet to be seen west of the Mississippi. The Jubilee served the dual purpose of showing the great advancement of the area in 50 years as well as demonstrating 1847 as the significant founding date of Utah (rather than 1896 statehood).

"Salt Lake City has perhaps never before been so packed with enthusiastic sightseers. The streets cease to be streets about the time when parade begins - they are rivers of humanity in which the people surge to and fro, here moving rapidly for a stretch in ripples of anticipation toward some happening a block or two away, there forming a whirlpool which moves round and round some striking object of interest." - Deseret News (1897/7/21).