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By Mikal Norton
Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry site is, how it can still provide us with
valuable historic archaeological information, and inspire historical
archaeologists to research further into the site.
Its not hard to find the Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry site, it is
currently part of a trail called the Temple Quarry Trail up in Little Cottonwood
Canyon. The whole canyon is part of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest,
which means the trail is continually being maintained and protected.
Unfortunately, this also means the site itself is constantly being altered by
the thousands of hikers that go on that trail most months of the year. With
the site being set as public land, theres no way to keep historically
significant material that hasnt be excavated already from being stolen,
damaged, or moved except by threat of federal law.
At the present what is left of the site is mostly a few ruined buildings,
some scattered granite stones that still have chisel marks on them, and
some church site makers that the LDS church had set up in the 1990s. There
are also sections of the canyon walls that clearly show where quarrymen had
cut huge sections of stone out. All of these quarry relics are under constant
danger from human vandalism and the elements, which means any detailed
research that could be found from this site is becoming harder to find with
every passing year. Luckily the site is protected by federal law, but that is
not guarantee the sites will remain well preserved.
Though the quarry had been abandoned decades before the Wasatch
National Forest was made and most of the buildings, tracks, and signs of
human life had been lost to time, theres still a lot that can still be learned
from this site. I personally havent seen much research concerning
excavation at the Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry site outside of LDS church
records, and even those records are very limited in detailed information. My
interest in studying the Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry site is mainly to see
what life was like for these various quarrymen who had labored for nearly
four decades to help complete one of the greatest architectural
achievements in Salt Lake Valley history.
Since the site had been opened from 1860 to almost the turn of the
century theres undoubtedly a lot of human signs of the changing times that
happened as the quarry was in use. One of the biggest changes that would
alter life at the quarry entirely was the completion of the Transcontinental
Railroad, which not only made goods and services available from the eastern
states, but they could also haul granite blocks straight to Salt Lake City.
Historic information of all kinds still waits in the quarry site, so its imperative
that the site be excavated and research as much as possible.
found close enough to carry granite blocks to Salt lake Temple Square. In
1860 the Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry was opened and construction
began on the Salt Lake Temple. A Scottish immigrant named James C.
Livingston, who was a stone cutter by trade, was appointed to oversee the
quarry and teach his trade to those who needed it.
It overall took forty years to complete the Salt Lake Temple, thirty-nine
of those years were spent just working on the stone work of the temple. This
was due to many problems, delays, and events that plagued the temples
construction. Two of the major reasons was a military incident that eventually
led to the foundations of the temple being completely torn out and replaced,
and the other was the tedious method of transporting granite to the temple.
Not long after the sandstone foundations for the temple had been
placed, shocking news reached them that an impending army of federal
troops were marching towards them. This army had been sent due to fictions
reports of a Mormon insurrection taking place in the Salt Lake valley,
leading U.S. president Buchanan to hastily put a stop this supposed threat.
In an effort to keep the federal troops from desecrating their temple
site Brigham Young had the saints bury the foundations and make it look like
a freshly plowed field, then he had them desert Salt Lake City until the troops
had passed on. Luckily the troops did pass by without incident, but when the
time came to dig up foundation again the saints were dismayed to find that
foundations stones had all cracked and were left useless as a foundation. It
was then decided that the entire foundation be torn out and replaced entirely
by granite, unfortunately it had already taken four years just to lay the
foundation. It would now take longer to replace the work that had already
been done.
Then next biggest hindrance to the temples construction, in fact the
one of the leading reasons why progress was so slow, was the time it took to
transport the granite blocks from the quarry to the temple grounds. Each
block of granite that was cut and shipped weighed anywhere from 2,500 to
5,600 pounds, and one block would take three to four days to transport, even
with good weather and a team of strong ox to pull the wagon.
This incredibly slow transporting process is what led to the decision to
shut down the quarry. This shut down was only temporary though, due to the
coming arrival and near completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1868
all manpower was diverted to helping in completing the railroad. In which
time a lot of conflicts arose with the saints and the railroad workers, not all
physical conflicts, but a good deal of moral conflicts. The famous Hell on
Wheels, the movable towns the railroad builders carried with them by train,
was the source of a great deal of strife for many of the saints, particularly the
saloons, brothels, and accompanying criminals.
At one point during work on the railroad explosives were used to widen
a canyon for the trains to pass through easily. James Livingston had been
reassigned from overseeing the quarry to directing the saints as they worked
completely forgotten. The train tracks that had connected Salt Lake City to
Little Cottonwood were disconnected and mostly taken apart. It wasnt until
the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest was founded in the mid 1900s that
the site became active with people again, mainly with hikers and historian
enthusiasts. The remnants of this once thriving quarry can still be seen in the
chiseled stone blocks and only ruins that dot the canyon today.
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Since the quarry was completely owned by the LDS church and
manned by church members who basically had to live at the quarry I believe
that one of the ruined structures still found at the quarry site was a LDS
church building.
2. How did working conditions change for the quarry workers after the
completion of the Transcontinental Railroad?
Hypothesis 1:
I believe that the time the workers spent helping build the railroad had
caused an increase of more vices hidden into their working community,
especially after contact with Hell on Wheels, such as liquor consumption,
smoking, and gambling.
Hypothesis 2:
With the Transcontinental railroad finish and goods from the eastern
states now available to Utah I believe that and increase in more finely made
tools, lifting machines, and food stores will be found at the site.
With these questions I intend to give the world a greater look into who a
quarryman was, as a community and as an individual, and demonstrate what
factors altered that identity. This research will go a long way into helping us
understand more about the saints who first settled in the Salt Lake Valley and how
they chose to adapt to the change world around them. All of this research is
specifically geared toward understanding what makes life and culture in Utah
unique and how it got that way.
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eastern states could be found that date back to after the Transcontinental
Railroad being built.
Digging and heavy examination will commence around old structures
in an effort to ascertain what the function of the buildings were for. Provided
the proper safety precautions are taken we will dig within the ruins to find
evidence as to what function each building played a part in the quarry. I hope
to find evidence that one of the ruins was once a church building where the
LDS members gathered together to worship.
To further expand my research other more sophisticated techniques
will be employed into order to ascertain deeper information. Metal detecting
techniques will be used to find deeper artifacts hidden about, such as broken
tools, a possible blacksmithing location, or even a lost machine. Soil
resistivity will be used to find possible locations of major quarrying activity or
any other types of activities. Magnetonetry may even be used to find
possible concentrations, like a fire pit, a dump, or possibly even a grave site.
Other methods may be required as work continues, but ultimately I am
certain that the methods I have mentioned thus far will be more than enough
to determine whether my hypothesis to my questions are true or not. For all
I know everything I hypothesize could be completely wrong, or theres just
not enough evidence left to come to any conclusive answer. The fact is that
this site possibly holds a great deal of knowledge and I am determined to
find out what may be hidden in this obscure little section of human history.
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Summary
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Bibliography
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