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[Hugh Nibley writes:] "All who attended, at President Young’s invitation, the great 24th of July celebrations at Brighton 'were requested to show their tickets at the gate' to the canyon road. The tickets were free, and on them was printed: 'All persons are forbidden to make or kindle fires at any place in the kanyon, except on the camp ground.' A hundred years later people in Utah still resent limitations on campfires as an infringement on their God-given freedom. The prophet ended his 24th of July speech with a ritual admonition 'to put out their fires and vacate this ground, for I intend to tarry . . . until the rest are gone, and see that the fires are all well put out.' The event at Brighton was magnificent enough to get coverage in the eminent New York Herald, and the reporter who described the doings in the year 1860 tells how at dawn of the following day, after all the wagons had gone home and the dust had settled on the canyon road, he beheld a singular spectacle: 'By nine o’clock the last team had left the camping-ground'; but one man remained behind 'to see that all fires were extinguished.' And who should that man be but Brigham Young: ‘The Prophet’ left the last, satisfied that all was right, and that his disciples had enjoyed themselves to their hearts’ content; and thus ended the great celebration of 1860.”

Church Leaders
Brigham Young
Presidents of the Church | "Brigham Young on the Environment," from Hugh Nibley's Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints; printed in Truman Madsen and Charles D. Tate, eds., To the Glory of God: Mormon Essays on Great Issues—Environment, Commitment, Love, Peace, Youth, Man (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972), 3-29.
Read 187 times Last modified on September 03, 2019