Salt Lake City Self-Guided Walking Audio Tour

Welcome to Salt Lake City! In the capital city of Utah, histories of Mormonism and Western expansion come alive in this stunning valley at the base of the Wasatch mountain range. This tour begins outside the Visit Salt Lake Center at 90 S W Temple St. If you're not there already, you should head there now. Note: The tour is over 2.5 miles long, with more than 30+ audio stories, and takes about 1-2 hours to complete. Buy once, use for one year! Ideal for extended visits and return trips over the next 12 months.

Directly to our left is the Crandall Building, the very first skyscraper built in Salt Lake City. It’s the building with the carved arched entryway. Constructed in the 1890s, the building originally housed McCornick Bank. It was one of the first buildings in the area to include an elevator! Locals were fascinated by the new-fangled contraption, and women draped in calico dresses accompanied their husbands to the bank just to ride it.

Look across the road. See that 25-foot bronze statue ahead? That’s Brigham Young. Who was Brigham Young and why does he have a statue here? Like Joseph Smith, Young grew up in western New York. But unlike Smith, he was raised in a strict Puritanicalhousehold which shunned other sects of Christianity. When his brother gifted him the Book of Mormon, Young was skeptical. But he didn’t throw it away. He studied it for two years before finally deciding to become a Mormon. Now that’s dedication!

See that bronze statue of a man and woman struggling to carry a cart? Pause in front. This is the aptly named Handcart Pioneer Monument. You might assume this honors the Mormons Brigham Young first led here… but you’d be wrong! The statue actually serves as a memorial to another wave of Mormon pioneers who journeyed from Europe to the Salt Lake area in 1856.

Okay, what’s with the pillar on our right? And why are there gold seagulls perched on top? That’s Seagull Monument. Seagulls? Here? In a land-locked city? Allow me to explain. According to Mormon legend, After getting settled in Salt Lake City in 1848, the Mormon pioneers started planting crops. As the crops ripened and the Mormons celebrated. They were about to have a great harvest! Unfortunately, their hopes were quickly dashed. Swarms of crickets descended and devoured the crops! But the Mormons didn’t despair. Instead, the farmers knelt in prayer.

This massive structure on our left is the Salt Lake Assembly Hall. Built in 1882, this has been one of the main gathering places for Salt Lake’s Mormons for almost 150 years. But it wasn’t the first such gathering place! To our right stands the Salt Lake Tabernacle, built almost 20 years earlier.

Pause here. To our left stands the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. Built between 1863 and 1867, The Salt Lake Tabernacle was designed for large gatherings and events for the Mormon Church.

On our right stands the Salt Lake Temple. Look up – see the spires and the statue of the angel Moroni? Remember, that’s the angel who led Joseph Smith to the golden tablets of the Book of Mormon.

We’re walking through Temple Square! From the very beginning, the Mormons intended this to be the heart of Salt Lake City. But the beginnings of this settlement weren’t nearly so ostentatious. The Mormons didn’t have the easiest time during their first winter. They had to live off of a meager portion of bread each day. Then a measles outbreak swept through the settlement. They just couldn’t catch a break!

The white building with the tall pillars to our left is the Relief Society Building. Pause here. First organized in 1842 by Joseph Smith, the Relief Society is a women’s organization of the Mormon Church dedicated to helping the poor. But it became the center of a major struggle during the early days of the religion!

To our right is Brigham Young Historic Park. It sits on land Brigham Young and his family owned in the 1800s. This is actually just a portion of it – the full estate extended north nearly three blocks! At the time, the land was dotted with carpentry sheds and barns, and part of it hosted orchards of apples, peaches, and pears.

Enter the park and follow the path, keeping to the left of the creek. This is City Creek Park. Named, of course, for the creek running through it! When the Mormon pioneers first settled down here, one of their first orders of action was to dam this creek. By damming the creek, pioneers could soften the ground they needed to grow produce, like turnips. They had picked up a thing or two about taming harsh environments during their long journey across America.

That white building with a green cupola on our right is the Old City Hall, now known as Salt Lake City Council Hall. Today, the building houses the Utah Office of Tourism and the Utah Film Commission, but that wasn’t always the case. Nor was this where the Hall originally was located.

Like I said earlier, when the Mormon pioneers first arrived, Utah wasn’t a state. From 1850–1896 Utah operated as a territory. Locals didn’t love this—they petitioned the Federal Government seven times to become a state before it finally happened. So why did it take so long for Utah to become a state?

It’s hard to miss that monument straight ahead. Feel free to go up and get a closer look! This is the Mormon Battalion Monument, which commemorates the 500 Mormon pioneer volunteers who joined the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. Built in 1927 by Gilbert Riswold, the monument chronicles different periods of the Battalion's history.

Women have long played an important role in Utah politics. That includes Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first female state senator in the U.S. Known to her friends as “Mattie,” Cannon immigrated to Utah from England with her family in the mid-1800s. As a young girl, Mattie wasn’t afraid to get dirty. Since she walked to work, Mattie tucked her skirt and wore men’s boots so she wouldn’t get muddy. How scandalous! As a teenager, she worked as a typesetter for a women’s newspaper printed by the Mormon church.

Coming up on our left is an expansive, brick Victorian mansion. That’s the McCune Mansion, completed around the turn of the century. You may be wondering who built this beautiful manor. After all, Salt Lake City still had a wild west vibe in the early 1900s. That would be Alfred McCune, who amassed his fortune by building parts of the Utah Southern Railroad. He was soon rubbing elbows with other tycoons, like J.P. Morgan and William Randolph Hearst. Hearst is the man Citizen Kane is based on! Perhaps inspired by his new friends, McCune decided he wanted to flaunt his wealth.

Off to our right stands the Salt Lake City Conference Center. Completed in 2000, the Conference Center is home to the semiannual general conference of the LDS. Every April and October, church members from all over the world gather here to listen to Church leaders.

On our left stands the Church History Library. Open in 2009 for business, the Church History Library preserves any and all materials related to the Mormon church. And by all, I mean it – there are documents from the 1820s! If you want to get a glimpse of some of the early writings of people like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, this is the place to do it.

That building to our right is the Church History Museum. Built in 1984, the Church History Museum houses interactive exhibits and artifacts from the pioneer journey to Salt Lake City. It’s a great way to dig even deeper into what life was like for those early settlers.

The massive gray building to our right is the Family History Library. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about where your family came from, this is the place to go. The Library is staffed by expert researchers who will happily help you begin your genealogy journey. And you may need their help – the Library’s collection contains the names of over 3 billion people from around the world! It’s all housed through microfilm, books, and periodicals.