Our History, 1869–74

Abstract

As the transcontinental railroad neared completion in 1869, the Protestant establishment of the United States seemed to be on a collision course with Latter-day Saint hegemony in Utah Territory. In Salt Lake City, Episcopalians consecrated St. Mark’s Cathedral three blocks from the Salt Lake tabernacle less than a month before the dedication of First Presbyterian Church just a block beyond that. The government-backed Protestant establishment seemed to be closing in on the Mormon establishment. In that context church historian Orson Pratt continued to function as the major narrator, repeating again and again the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision in ways that consolidated as a usable past in the context of an embattled present.