For This Is Our Promised Valley (Part 1 of 7)

For This Is Our Promised Valley (Part 1 of 7)
I guess every community has its Founders Day celebrations that are unique to that community. I am proud to live in a valley where its founding is celebrated around the world. The Mormons in the 1840s were fleeing religious persecution in the east. On July 24, 1847, they entered the Great Salt Lake Valley and their leader, Brigham Young, uttered the famous words, “This is the Place.” He had seen the valley in a vision and when the valley matched the vision, he knew it was the right place. From then on, July 24th was celebrated as the day the saints entered the valley. Each year was marked by a celebration, parades, and people worshiping in Church and giving thanks for such a wonderful valley. And it wasn’t limited to just the Salt Lake Valley either. Mormon communities in Utah and Mormon congregations the world over celebrated “Pioneer Day on July 24th.”
Then in 1947 the Church leaders wanted to do many more things to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of such an important event. One was to build a huge monument at the mouth of Emigration Canyon where the saints first beheld the valley. Another was to commission a musical production called Promised Valley. Originally a nationally renowned composer was asked to write the music for this musical, but a change was made and an unknown composer named Crawford Gates was engaged to write the music. He was just twenty-five years old and from California. He had been hired by a Salt Lake radio station, KSL, to be an arranger for their orchestra. Since he was a Mormon, and had grown up with Pioneer Day celebrations, he wrote the music with a fervor that a non-Mormon could not have had. Though the years the musical was produced for the Pioneer Day celebrations. A simplified version was also made so groups of Mormons all over the United States and the world could produce the musical Promised Valley.