Qualla: Seagull Monument

Seagull Monument: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. At 10:50 on the morning of October 1, 1913, Emmeline B. Wells pulled three cords, and three American flags dropped from atop a granite column on Temple Square. The crowd of 5,000 gasped. Wells, now 85 years old, had been a 21-year-old pioneer woman in 1848 when she witnessed what the flags had concealed: bronze seagulls, wings spread, commemorating the day flocks of California gulls descended on the Salt Lake Valley and devoured the Mormon crickets that were destroying the settlers' first harvest. Believers called it divine intervention. Whatever the explanation, the Seagull Monument became the first monument in the United States dedicated to birds.

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Image: Mx. Granger | CC0

Seagull Monument: Crickets, Prayers, and Wings

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Irwin-Scott, CC BY 2.0. The spring of 1848 was the Mormon pioneers' first planting season in the Salt Lake Valley. They had arrived the previous July, following Brigham Young's declaration that this arid basin beneath the Wasatch Mountains would become their home. The crops grew. Then the Mormon cricket...

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Image: Irwin-Scott | CC BY 2.0

Seagull Monument: The Artist and His Grandfather's Legacy

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photograph by Beneathtimp, Public domain. The sculptor who brought the story to bronze was Mahonri Young, grandson of Brigham Young himself. The idea for a monument originated with George E. Carpenter, an editor at the Deseret News, who commissioned Young to create seagull drawings for the newspaper's 1907 Christmas edit...

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Image: Photograph by Beneathtimp | Public domain

Seagull Monument: Choosing the Right Sky

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lucas·G, CC BY-SA 4.0. Church leaders initially proposed placing the monument just south of the Salt Lake Temple, but Young rejected the site. The massive temple would dwarf his sculpture, he argued. Instead, he selected a spot near the Salt Lake Assembly Hall, where the open sky could serve as backdro...

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Image: Lucas·G | CC BY-SA 4.0

Seagull Monument: Gulls, Goldfish, and Trout

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carpenter Paper Co., Salt Lake, Utah, Public domain. When first installed, the monument stood surrounded by a circular pool filled with water lilies and goldfish. There was just one problem: live seagulls. The descendants of those celebrated 1848 birds regularly visited Temple Square and discovered that the goldfish, confined to th...

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Image: Carpenter Paper Co., Salt Lake, Utah | Public domain