Ensign Peak
SUP Marker #4-C, located at the S.U.P. Building – see other S.U.P. Markers here.
Elevation 5,441Feet
Monday morning, July 26, 1847, the pioneers resumed their secular labors. Although Brigham Young, leader of the pioneer band, was suffering from Mountain fever, he directed that exploration work be started immediately, one party headed by himself. The party left about 10 o’clock a.m. This party consisted of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Albert Carrington and William Clayton.
Messrs. Kimball, Woodruff, Benson and Smith had ascended City Creek Canyon several miles the Saturday evening before. The party now climbed to the hills west of the canyon and proceeded northward, the president still riding. “A good place to raise an ensign,” he remarked … as the party planted their feet upon a prominent peak near the western edge of a mountainous spur projecting in the valley from the northeast. Ensign Peak, the mountain, was accordingly named, which title it still bears . . . from the top of the peak the view was more than ever sublime.
“ENSIGN” in the minds of the Mormon Pioneers concerned not one nation, but all nations; not one epoch or age, but all epochs and all ages; not nationality but humanity, is its scope and concern. It was the sign and ensign of the Empire of the Christ; it was a prophecy of the time to come when the kingdom of this world would become “the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and forever.”
From the earliest days of the settlement of this valley, Ensign Peak has been the site of the official flagstaff; being the point where the national emblem has always been flown on holidays and special occasions.
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