A visitor to Salt Lake City unacquainted with the area and its history is unlikely to notice the nondescript, mound-shaped prominence in the low mountains just north of the city.
This geographic landmark evokes the scriptural prophecy that helped motivate the settlement of Salt Lake City and other Mormon communities throughout the Intermountain West.
Its very name, Ensign Peak, bespeaks the Old Testament utterance of the prophet Isaiah, who foretold:
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people. ...
"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (Isaiah 11:11-12).
Latter-day Saints, of course, teach that this prophecy refers to this gospel dispensation when the descendants of Israel are to be gathered from their long dispersion and again united as a covenant people.
President Brigham Young understood this. He and the vanguard group of exiled pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, a Saturday. Sabbath day services were held the following day. On Monday, he hiked the summitof the peak to the north in the company of eight brethren: Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Willard Richards, Albert Carrington, William Clayton and Lorenzo Dow Young.
Pioneer journals record that the party used a telescope to survey the valley below. President Young identified the location at the base of the peak where a temple would be constructed and a city built.
Reportedly, apostle George A. Smith remarked, "On this peak is a good place to raise an ensign." President Young enthusiastically agreed, and named it Ensign Peak, whereupon Heber C. Kimball borrowed the walking stick of Willard Richards, tied a bandanna to the end of it, lifted it to the sky and shouted, "An ensign to all the world!"
The above scenario is something of a fulfillment of prophecy in and of itself. Elder George A. Smith, nearly 22 years later, would tell a congregation in the Salt Lake Tabernacle:
"After the death of Joseph Smith, when it seemed as if every trouble and calamity had come upon the Saints, Brigham Young, who was president of the Twelve, then the presiding quorum of the Church, sought the Lord to know what they should do, and where they should lead the people for safety, and while they were fasting and praying daily on this subject, President Young had a vision of Joseph Smith, who showed him the mountain that we now call Ensign Peak, immediately north of Salt Lake City, and there was an ensign fell upon that peak, and Joseph said, 'Build under the point where the colors fall and you will prosper and have peace' " (Journal of Discourses 13:85-86).
The vision was vivid enough that President Young recognized the peak when he saw it, and he said, "I want to go there."
For more than a half-century, the Salt Lake Valley and its surrounding settlements would be a physical gathering place for converts to the Church from Europe, the British Isles, Scandinavia and elsewhere. When a solid base of operations had been established for the work of building the kingdom of God, Church leaders announced that Latter-day Saints should remain where they were and build up the Church wherever they were living.
Thus, the spiritual gathering, begun with the restoration of the gospel and priesthood authority to Joseph Smith, continues today. As one LDS scholar has put it, "It's as if the Latter-day Saints saw themselves as the modern version of ancient Israel, being gathered to their homeland, and that gathering represented their fully coming unto Christ and unto Christ's kingdom. That gathering wasn't completed — as is taught — until temples had been erected and temple blessings had been received by the Saints. The gathering was not just a physical relocation, but a movement to Christ and His kingdom first and foremost, and then, if necessary and appropriate, to lands of their inheritance. The gathering, as is taught in the Book of Mormon, is always spiritual first and temporal second" (Robert L. Millet, quoted in "Pioneers were a covenant people," Church News, July 5, 1997).
Thus, Ensign Peak is significant not just to local residents but to each and every Latter-day Saint throughout the broad and global expanse of the Church in these latter days. It is a physical emblem of the gathering of Israel now going on in preparation for the coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in glory.
In the mid-1990s, a group now known as the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, raised funds for and spearheaded a project to beautify Ensign Peak with a park at its base and an improved nature trail to the summit. Those improvements were dedicated on July 26, 1996, exactly 149 years to the day since Brigham Young and his exploring party first climbed the peak and gave it its name.
Today, hikers of nearly all ages in reasonably good health can ascend the peak within a half-hour or so. As we approach the annual celebration of Pioneer Day on July 24, and with lingering evening daylight in this summer month, residents of and visitors to the Salt Lake area might consider an Ensign Peak hike an appropriate family activity. They might pause at the top, gaze upon the vista that Brigham Young and his brethren saw, and sing the words of the hymn written by pioneer Joel Hills Johnson and inspired by the peak:
High on the mountain top
A banner is unfurled.
Ye nations now look up;
It waves to all the world.
In Deseret's sweet peaceful land,
On Zion's mount behold it stand!
