“Contents,” Ensign, July 1974, 1
Ensign
July 1974
Volume 4 Number 7
The Saints in Scandinavia. See page 28.
Logan 1892. Painted by C. Eisele. The present population of Logan is stated at 6,000. … The highest quality of taste is displayed in the laying out and platting of the city. The streets and avenues are wide and straight, either side ornamented with shade trees, and built up with residences, commercial houses, public edifices, etc. …” (Manly and Litteral, Utah, Her Cities, Towns and Resources, edited and published by Manly and Litteral, Chicago, 1892, p. 214.)
When this picture was painted, Logan had emerged from a string of log cabins along Center Street to become a beautiful city, the county seat, and the stake center for Latter-day Saint worship.
As early as 1857 Mormon settlers wagon-trained into Cache Valley, but apprehension over Johnson’s Army entering Utah and possible Indian uprisings caused their recall. In 1859 community leader Peter Maughan returned to the valley with his family, and 30 other families soon followed. Logan was settled in June of that year. When the Deseret News advertised Maughan’s description of the lush farming lands of the valley with abundant water, and when Brigham Young added, “No other valley in the territory is equal to this,” settlers rushed in. By March 1860 there were 100 homes in Logan, and by 1861 there were four wards.
Utah State Agricultural College opened in 1890 in the building known as “Old Main,” readily identified on the hill by its tower. The Logan Temple, near the center of Logan, can be seen from almost every part of the valley. An impressive stone structure, it was dedicated on May 17, 1884.
Construction of the Logan Tabernacle—long in the building because the hard-working Saints were building homes, ward houses, and a temple at the same time—commenced in 1865, but it was not dedicated until 1891.
The original of this historic painting hangs on the fourth floor of the Salt Lake Temple.