Snowflake's Pioneer Day Celebration
What is Pioneer Day? Snowflake’s annual celebration is commemorating two special events. First, on July 24, 1847, the Mormon Pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley in Utah after relocating from the persecution they were facing in Illinois. Salt Lake City and many more LDS communities in the mountainous west celebrate this anniversary, including Snowflake and neighboring Saint Johns. I remember as a kid referring to this weekend simply as the “24th". The “24th” or the “Celebrations” is synonymous with Pioneer Day.
The second commemoration is that 147 years ago, on July 21, 1878, the first settlers of Snowflake entered the Silver Creek Valley. The town’s founder, William Jordan Flake, with his own and a few other families entered the Silver Creek Valley to take possession of James Stinson’s ranch on that July day. Flake first entered the valley on July 4, 1878. He met Stinson and struck a deal to buy Stinson’s squatter rights in a just a couple weeks.
Since the early years of Snowflake, the residents have celebrated Pioneer Day. A parade has been a staple of the celebrations. Up until a couple years ago, a barbecue was part of the festivities too.
My memory from my childhood idealized this weekend. The footraces started the day. That was followed by the parade and then the barbecue and pioneer program in the Main Street Chapel. The rodeo filled up the afternoon. The championship softball games in the evening were so fun. The fireworks on the softball field capped the night until I was a little older and would go to the youth dance hoping to meet new girls from the Valley that I wasn’t related to.
Usually, there is a concert, play, melodrama, or musical as part of the events. The arts and crafts fair and car show put on by the Chamber of Commerce has been a great addition.
While the events have evolved a little bit, the purpose of the celebration and why we put so much work into the events has stayed the same. The settlers who founded this town went through extreme hardships.
It was well said by Gordon B Hinckley, “we must never allow recognition of their (the pioneer’s) trials, of the sacrifices, of their tenacity, of their faith and their prayers in establishing this great community to lapse or be forgotten… Let us remember with gratitude and reverent respect those who have gone before us, who paid so dear a price in laying the foundation for that which we enjoy this day.”
As we celebrate our past, let us be welcoming to those that have found this place a refuge like so many before us.
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