Sons of Utah Pioneers, their magazine "the Pioneer," & their 125th statehood anniversary issue (Season 2, Ep. 8)

**Brad Westwood** (0:09)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history, produced by the Utah Dept. of Heritage & Arts. I'm Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian. My job is to make the very best, the most interesting and the most accurate history of Utah accessible to the widest audience.
If there's one place, one podcast to get your Utah history fixed, I hope this is the place.
We have three guests today, Bill Tanner, Wayne Hinton and Tom Alexander. All three of them are from the Sons of the Utah Pioneers, or affectionately and abbreviatedly we call the SUP. Good morning, Bill, Wayne and Tom.

**Wayne Hinton** (0:54)
Good morning, Brad.

**Brad Westwood** (0:57)
Tom, Wayne and Bill have joined me on Speak Your Piece to discuss the statewide work of the National Society of the Sons of Utah Pioneers, and to give us some insights into the organization's 125th statehood anniversary issue which will be sent out to its members and available to the public shortly after Utah's 125th statehood anniversary which is January 4th coming up in this new year.
Let me introduce my guest today. Dr. William W. Tanner is the publisher and chair of the Pioneer Magazine editorial board and is a driving force behind the Sons of Utah Pioneers magazine pioneer. Dr. Wayne Hinton is professor emeritus in history at Southern Utah University in Cedar City. He is the author among dozens of articles and other works, Utah's unusual beginning to unique present. And Wayne served in 2020 as the national president of the Sons of Utah Pioneers. And he was the organization's first national president elected by popular vote. By the way, the current president whom I met at the rededication of the Salt Lake City Pioneer Fort monument, his name is Brad Clayton. Our third guest is Dr. Tom Alexander, who is professor emeritus from Brigham Young University in Provo, where he was the Lemuel Red Jr. Professor of Western History and was the longtime director of the Charles Red Center for Western Studies, also at BYU. Tom also served as president of the Sons of Utah Pioneers in 2015 and since then is serving on the editorial staff of the Pioneer magazine.
Let's first talk about the Sons of Utah Pioneers, its history, its mission, its accomplishments. What's the big story, gentlemen, regarding the Sons of Utah Pioneers?

**Thomas Alexander** (3:02)
Well, perhaps I could talk a little bit about that. I wrote a short history about 10 pages long of the Sons of Utah Pioneers in 2013
So it's not completely up to date, but it does tell something about the origins. In July 1907, descendants of Utah Pioneers organized the Sons and Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Apostle and Senator Reed Smoot was one of the leaders in doing that, and President Joseph F. Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints addressed them at their first meeting. Well, this didn't go anywhere. A group of 54 women under the leadership of Annie Taylor Hyde, who was the daughter of President John Taylor, had already organized the International Society of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in 1901
They were really interested in having an organization of sons and daughters. Jointly. It took about 20 years before the first organization of a chapter of Sons of Utah Pioneers took place. That took place in 1928, when a group of Provo men organized the Sons of Utah Pioneers, the George Albert Smith chapter. It was that chapter that established Pioneer Park here in Provo. That is the Heritage Park. It's on 5th West, about 6th North.
The George Albert Smith chapter was the only chapter until 1933, when Lawrence Epperson moved to Salt Lake City.
Epperson then met in Salt Lake with a group of people. They organized the Sons of Utah Pioneers and drafted a Constitution. You can say that either 1928 or 1933 is the founding date of the Sons of Utah Pioneers. I prefer the 1928 chapter because it was a continuous chapter in Provo for a long time. It's interesting that both Latter-day Saints and others belong to the chapter. In fact, one of the early presidents of the Sons of Utah Pioneers was Herbert Auerbach, who was a prominent Jewish businessman. He served as president during a period in the 1930s. Well, that's something about the organization of the Sons of Utah Pioneers. Perhaps Bill and Wayne can add something as well. Though I could say more about this. You probably want to move on.

**Brad Westwood** (6:30)
No, no.
What I do want to say, though, I do want to speak more about the organization and its history. But I'd like to ask one of you about the mission and what it intended to accomplish, and maybe about the breadth of membership.