Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum
- Alex Cabrero
- Nov 27, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
(St. George) Kylie absolutely loves museums. She enjoys learning about history, especially Utah pioneer history, so this was a great spot for us to spend a little time learning about how St. George and the surrounding area were settled.
Of course, Native Americans were in the St. George area well before Europeans came to this land, but this museum explains how pioneers with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled the area. It was rough land with very little water and shade. These pioneers get a lot of credit for making it livable and then prosperous. As soon as you walk into the main room on the top floor of the museum, you'll see tons of pictures and items belonging to those pioneers. This is recent history, when cameras were already around, so it's neat to see photos of some of these people.
LDS prophet Brigham Young assigned some of the pioneers that came across the country with him to Salt Lake City to settle the St. George area. It wasn't easy. However, their efforts must be applauded. Seeing things like their furniture, personal items, glasses, etc. make this museum feel alive.
The museum is closed on Sundays and Wednesdays and is free of charge to go in. Someone will greet you inside and ask if you want a guided tour or if you would like to look around and wander on your own. We chose to wander on our own. Every now and then, the friendly volunteers who work here will tell you some interesting tidbit of an item you're looking at. I really liked seeing the medals and ribbons in the display cases. I bet these were so important to the person who owned them and probably make them feel so proud, like the pictures above of the homecoming St. George celebrations. That must've been so much fun.
It was also cool to see Brigham Young's bed when he stayed here. Brigham liked to visit St. George and had a nice place to sleep when coming to Southern Utah. He was very popular with the local LDS believers and I'm sure there were plenty of festivals and celebrations when he was in town.
The museum also has a great display of military jackets and the Nauvoo Legion, which were important to the beginning of the LDS religion. Workers at the museum recently discovered LDS Apostle Erastus Snow owned and wore two of the jackets on display. The Nauvoo Legion jacket is very rare and unique and might be one of a kind. The buttons on the jacket have "N.L. Life Guard" written on them. That was a group Joseph and Hyrum Smith's bodyguards in 1840-1845. Joseph Smith is the founder of the LDS religion and Hyrum is his brother.
The museum belongs to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Volunteers help run the place and keep all the items maintained. People from around the world come here to look at the collections and learn about St. George pioneer history. There are still many items in storage that get donated to the museum all the time.
My favorite picture in the museum is of the St. George Temple. It's on wide open land with barely anything around it. Today, St. George's population has exploded and there are houses, buildings, and road all around the St. George Temple. It was odd seeing the Temple all by itself, but extremely interesting to see just how much growth has happened in the area.
Music continues to be important to those in the LDS religion. I think it was even more so back then before TV and internet and iTunes. One organ (piano?) on display has a sign on it that said it came from across the plains in a wagon. Can you imagine that? I think that's amazing. How much joy did this organ bring to people? I can picture them singing and clapping and dancing. It probably helped them to forget tough times.
I had to include this picture of a Singer sewing machine. My grandmother Leona had one just like it, wooden table and everything, at her home in upstate New York. I can still hear it humming as the needle moved up and down through fabric and the spool of thread rolling to keep the stitches going. I can also still smell that wooden smell even though it's been 30 years. This was my favorite item in the museum because it reminded me of my grandmother. I miss her.
Would you try a piece of cake from 1899? One of the displays in the museum is a Christmas cake that won a prize from the Washington County Fair back in 1899. It was baked Jane Thompson Bleak, who was born in England in 1845. She came to American with her parents when she was 6-years-old and earned her pastry chef's certificate at the age of 13 when she lived in Rhode Island. When she was 16, she moved to Salt Lake City and then moved to St. George two weeks later with the Dixie Pioneers. Her cake has been under this glass cover for decades and is an example of her work and skill. She died in 1942.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of Bibles in the museum. These were among the most precious items people had back then. This Bible caught my attention because you can see how the cover is gone and the pages are exposed. You can even see the page start to peel from its backing. It made me wonder how many times this page was read and what it meant to the person who owned it.
You can spend as much, or as little, time as you want at the museum. I think we spent about an hour and a half here. If you're into Utah history, it's an excellent place to learn of some of the struggles and hard work it took to make St. George into a place where people could live. I think it's nice to have places like this and because the history wasn't that long ago, you can identify with the people and their experiences a little more.
ADDRESS:
145 N, 100 E
St. George, Utah
WEBSITE:
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