If you found yourself, through some fluke of a time machine or something, walking the streets of 1870s Salt Lake and said to someone, “This is the right place!” it might be that they would have no idea what you were talking about.
“Um, yeah, it is; what are you talking about?” they might respond. Why? Because we don’t know whether Brigham Young actually said these famous words or not.
There are two quotes by later Apostles who remembered what Brigham Young had said. Just before their arrival Brigham had fallen sick with the “Rocky Mountain Fever”, now known as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a disease carried by ticks which can be fatal if not treated. He was very lucky to emerge unscathed by the disease: symptoms include fever, chills, headache, and vomiting. Complications can include diarrhea, nausea, muscle aches, gangrene, arrhythmia, renal failure, and death (yeah, death’s a complication I’d say). Anyways, he was confined to a wagon possibly driven by one of the three slaves in the company, Green Flake (Flake would later be freed in 1854). As they approached the valley, Brigham obviously felt impressed that they had arrived at their new home.
Thirty-three years later, Wilford Woodruff published his recollections of the arrival in the valley. In 1847, his renowned journals were not yet assembled, and his not-so-daily journals (from which he would build his later journals) at this time were very sparse and do not contain the famous phrase. In a publication in 1888 he remembered Brigham had sat up enough to see valley below them and said, “It is the right place. Drive on.”
Erastus Snow, another apostle, recorded later that he had also heard Brigham Young say, “This is the place whereon we will plant our feet and where the Lord’s people will dwell.” The cry went through the wagon train quickly and they descended into the valley floor. We don’t find the statement in anyone’s journals for decades, however. If it was kept alive by word of mouth is uncertain, but it’s only after 1880 that the phrase “This is the place” enters the historical record and stays there. (I think it’s silly to say that one quote or the other is “the correct quote”, personally. I don’t have a problem when people say “This is the place” versus “This is the right place.”)
It is popular to speak of the Salt Lake Valley as being a barren desert without even a tree. This is actually quite false. There were small rivers crossing the valley floor where large green trees grew and the rest of the valley was wet enough to grow brush. In the canyons small green woods grew around the abundant mountain streams. The pioneers had enough water and good soil to immediately begin planting. They built a small dam, usually thought of as an aid in irrigation, but its main purpose was to hold water for livestock, plants, and humans if the rains failed (which they occasionally would in the future). The valley was a good location and the Saints were blessed that nobody else had thought to live there.
Sometimes people will point to a statement by Jim Bridger made to the advance company of pioneers before they reached the Salt Lake Valley; he supposedly said that he would pay 1000 dollars for a bushel of corn raised in the valley; someone has visibly altered the Journal History kept on the plains from the previous statement to “Bridger would give $1,000 if he only knew if we could raise an ear of corn.” (Was this more correct or more dramatic? We don’t know.) Either way, Bridger encouraged the Saints to continue to California. Why? Bridger himself was working on establishing his trading post near the valley; since the valley itself was already a good land for growing food many historians now feel that Bridger was attempting to keep Mormon competition away from his trading post. It didn’t work and eventually the Mormons because so populous that they eventually took over the trading post (and burned it to the ground during the Utah War).
Finally, another myth about the trek west involves the Mormon Battalion. Usually we think of the Mormon Battalion being mustered up using volunteers (like the previous “Zion’s Camp” of years before). However, Brigham Young simply promised the United States government the men it requested. Men were called to go out to the Mormons at Winter Quarters and on the plains. When these men arrived at a Mormon encampment they made a list of all of the men who would be called to serve in the Battalion and it was simply expected that these men would go. Some switches were made and the majority weren’t too happy to be serving in the United States army. They were promised that if they kept their covenants and the commandments they would not be hurt in battle and this promise was kept. They performed well and only fought one battle during their desert trek to California against a herd of wild bulls. Later, after earning money in California, many of the Battalion traveled to the Salt Lake Basin to find the fledgling community and either find or wait for their families.