History
In 1848 the Mormon pioneers planted crops for their first spring season in Utah. As the crops ripened, Mormon crickets descended upon the farms from the foothills east of the valley. The insects consumed entire fields. According to traditional account, the harvest was saved by flocks of native seagulls which devoured the crickets. This event, popularly called the "Miracle of the Gulls", is remembered by Latter-day Saints as a miracle. The incident is somewhat controversial in nature with some historians questioning the credibility of the account.
To celebrate the role seagulls played in the pioneer's first year in Utah, the LDS Church erected Seagull Monument on their Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. The top of the monument is a bronze statue of two insect-devouring seagulls cast by sculptor Mahonri M. Young, who designed the monument. Young studied in France, and was grandson of LDS leader Brigham Young. The monument was dedicated October 1, 1913 by LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith. Seagull Monument is believed to be the first monument dedicated to birds.
The California gull is now the Utah State bird.
Read more about this topic: Seagull Monument
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)