Picto Diary - 28 to 30 June - 2023 - The Toe Trail (and Pinto feedback)
Above: The Toe Trail. Snow Canyon State Park. Washington County, UT. 28 June 2023.
Images look, west, south, east north. Round trip, 3.2 miles. This is a frequent AM walk for me, door to door, when we are in Ivins.
Above: LSDM Friday Colloquy. Wasatch Bagel. Park City, UT. 30 June 2023.
Topic du jour affordable housing.
Note taker likes PZP idea of vouchers. With subsidies for desirables, the free market will sort it out. Also, PGA prepping for second run at British Senior Amateur Open. He scored second last year. Caddy is his secret to win.
Above: Burgess Owens, US Congressman, Utah Fourth Congressional District. Elephant Club, Alta Club, Salt Lake City, UT. 30 June 2023.
Owens cited Utah's four, preeminent values:
1. Faith
2. Freedom
3. Family
4. Education.
In the Q and A I asked Owens about whether or not the US House of Representatives was prepared to impeach President Biden for corruption. He replied that when the House impeached President Trump they didn't need to have a lot of evidence against Trump to make their decision. They had the tailwinds of the corporate press to give their case energy. Owens noted that those same corporate press tailwinds insulate President Biden from criticism about corruption. For that reason, Owens noted, Republican investigators need to have a rock solid, smoking gun case to put Biden away. He noted that Republican House investigators are working hard, with good forward momentum, to build a solid impeachment case against President Biden.
Addendum:
Thanks Steve—great trip. Try to always buy fuel in Salina either at Maverick or Exxon maybe cheapest in Utah for some strange reason. Loved the blue ribbon—one happy girl! Did you ever find our house in Woodruff? No water here for a few years, now plenty but the market dropped out from under the hay prices. We all sold cattle to get through the drought which means an overabundance of hay.
The Monk,
Salina, UT
Hi!
Not surprisingly, I terribly miss Park City. Thank you so much for sending these beautiful photos ( the deer, for instance). Oh, and I am very proud of my former piano students!!! Keep me in the loop about their varied successes!!
Happy 4th of July!!
Arlys,
Music in the Mountains, Racine, WI
Thanks, fascinating Pinto history. Such ugliness in such a beautiful environment.
Nathans,
Massapequa, NY
Great post. Good work and thanks for sharing.
Dagget,
Park City, UT
All the photos were terrific the blue ribbon was outstanding😎🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thanks,
Mr. Z3,
Palm Desert, CA
Thanks for sharing. Nice.
Columbo,
San Jose, CA
If I had family, friends and even myself who had been shot at, chased out of 4 states, sexually assaulted, burned homes, businesses and crops-- I too would have a hard time thinking clearly about the same people threatening me and mine.
Drummer J,
Lehi, UT
John D. Lee was scapegoated for the massacre by the LDS leadership and sacrificed in order to get the feds off their backs. Lee was excommunicated from the LDS Church and latter executed by government authorities. His memoirs provide useful perspective on what actually happened.
Interestingly, decades later his membership in the church, and his temple ordinances, were all posthumously restored, which could only be done buy the highest authorities of the church. Those leaders apparently knew stuff that wasn't and isn't public. If they believed Lee was actually responsible for the murders, such a restoration would never have taken place.
If not Lee, then who?
Torq
Sandy, UT
Clearly, I am not a Mormon. But I am very puzzled after reading the online description and history contained in Wikipedia. It is long and seems full in description of the massacre and its evolution.
What is puzzling to me is that I could not find a reason, a specific cause etc. for why. What did the Fancher wagon train ACTUALLY DO to cause a massacre? Lots of what the train MIGHT DO but no “did it”.
Not a happy story and Young does not come off well.
Archbishop,
Naples, FL
My surmisal. The southern Utah Mormons were three hundred miles away from LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. No telegraph. It took six days for an express rider to make a round trip. High Salt Lake City Church authority George Albert Smith visited southern Utah only three weeks before the massacre took place. He told local authorities: "We are on a war footing. Albert Sydney Johnston's troops are just over the range in Wyoming. We hope to delay them until Spring. They can't make the Wasatch crossing in winter. If we can't delay them, we'll burn Salt Lake City to the ground and head for the hills. You'll have to do this too. There are wagon trains now periodically passing through your area. Our normal custom to trade with trains passing through. Wartime change of policy. Don't transact with them. Don't sell them anything. Train members may not be actual federal troops or authorities, but they sympathize with the Feds. As to the Indians, with whom you are friendly, who knows what they'll do to the trains (wink wink)."
Likely when the Fancher train passed south down the Mormon corridor in Central Utah, when Mormon settlers, on instruction from Smith, refused to trade with them, words, likely very nasty words about Joseph Smith's martyrdom etc., were exchanged. Rumors of these exchanges reached Cedar City before the Fancher train arrived and Cedar City authorities decided, without "explicit" authority from Young/Salt Lake, to teach the Fanchers a lesson. "Let's sic the Paiutes on them," they concluded. The Paiutes, promised spoils from the raid, were still not terribly enthusiastic about attacking the train in the first place. They did a "poor job" on the raid. They stopped the train, but the Fanchers were putting up a solid resistance. There was a stalemate, and the Paiutes were losing interest.
Cedar City authorities decided that the Paiutes needed a nudge. Cedar City Mormon militia higher ups sent John D. Lee to "fix" the problem... and oh, they agreed, "let's see what Brother Brigham says about the situation." They sent an "express" to Brigham, seeking his advice. Remember, we're two days into the massacre and we're six days away from getting an answer from Brigham. Was seeking out Brigham's view a CYA even though they knew the answer would never be received before they would have to "deal with the issue?"
Lee, on his way from Cedar City to the massacre site, finds out that Mormons have killed one of two Fancher train members outside of the compound who were trying to round up stray cattle. The Fancher party man who escaped being killed returned to the Fancher redoubt. Lee now knows that the Fanchers must realize that white men were part of the raid, not just the Indians. Lee is now enjoined by Cedar City higher ups (Dame, Haight, Higbee) to complete the "Piute Raid." The train cannot be allowed to reach Los Angeles lest surviving train members alert federal authorities to the Mormon role in the raid. My guess is that Lee, as "ground commander" developed the specifics of how the massacre would be completed and oversaw the plan.
Young's advice to "leave the Fancher train alone, but we don't have any control over what the Indians do" arrived three days after the final massacre. With Young's note "leave the train alone," there is no smoking gun that can blame Salt Lake and Brigham for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. However, the Cedar City settlers were operating in a war climate induced by Salt Lake and where ambiguity existed about what Salt Lake's view would be if the train were destroyed. We can't control those pesky Indians! Read Drummer J's and Torq's comments above to add texture to this discussion. The book I'm reading on topic is fascinating. Recommend. "Vengeance is Mine," by Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown.
