Early Artistic Works

Petroglyphs in Petroglyph Canyon interpretive area, Zion National Park, December 1961. Courtesy Zion National Park, Photographer Carl E. Jepson, Museum Catalog Number ZION 8161.

The oldest preserved forms of local art were created in stone by Indigenous peoples. Petroglyphs are found all throughout the state, including Southern Utah, and were created by distinct groups over thousands of years. They reveal details of nature, hunting, culture, and even hairstyles.[1] Even though many themes and practices were shared, specific groups developed their own unique styles. Ancestral Puebloan people locally, for example, created more rounded shapes than many other southwestern tribes. They also created fewer flute players and lizards, but depicted large numbers of bighorn sheep, deer, and abstract designs.[2]

Southern Paiutes made intricately woven baskets. Some were decorated with detailed patterns using a dark plant called “devil’s horn” or by adding color from crushed berries. They also made finely crafted cradle boards to carry their children, woven hats, and clothing made from buckskin, antelope, rabbit, and cliffrose. All of these served a practical purpose but were often imaginatively designed and artistically crafted.[3]

Latter-Day Saints

Eliza R. Snow Engraving, 1884. H.B. Hall and Sons. From Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Eliza R. Snow is a well-known early Latter-day Saint poet. She did not live in Southern Utah, but she was inspired by the beauty and economic potential of the region.[4] She composed a poem for Deseret News in 1864 which she described a desert land with “little Edens” between rocky cliffs.[5] She echoed Brigham Young’s desire for self-sufficiency.

I love the land of Dixie,

The nursery of the vine:

‘Twill yield an independency

 Of cotton, oil and wine.[6]

She ends the poem with a plea to invest in Southern Utah development.

Extend your large investments

To that exhaustless mine:

The gold is in the cotton plant-

The silver in the vine.[7]

Painting of Charles L. Walker in the St. George Tabernacle. By Del Parson. Displayed on the third floor of the Holland Centennial Commons, Utah Tech University.

George A. Hicks used poetry and music to create an altogether different view of Southern Utah settlement. Through a humorous song, “Once I Lived in Cottonwood,” he illustrated the profoundly serious trials experienced by early settlers.[8] His song ends, not with a plea for investment, but a plea for mercy: “May Heaven help the Dixie-ite wherever he may be.”[9]

Charles L. Walker was a prolific early poet and musician in Southern Utah.[10] He wrote music for religious and social events. In 1868, he wrote “St George and the Drag-On,” in which he described a difficult land of heat and wind that had become a beautiful green city through perseverance:

Muskeet soaproot prickly pears and briers

St. George ere long will be a place that everyone admires.[11]

John M. Macfarlane was an influential choir director and music educator. He is today best remembered for writing and composing “Far, Far, Away on Judea’s Plains” while living in St. George. It remains a popular Christmas hymn. He worked with Charles L. Walker to compose another hymn, “Dearest Children, God is Near You.”[12]

Newspapers were a common way to announce upcoming community dramatic and musical events and share songs and poems. These events ranged from “moonlight serenades” to large community gatherings.[13] Many of the latter included both musical and dramatic performances.  Drama was well-attended in St. George. Performing for a packed audience, the  St. George Dramatists were “bringing down the house with laughter.”[14] Many of these plays  were split into two parts, a drama and a humorous farce.[15]

Silver Reef Street, Undated, likely 1880s. Bart Anderson Slide Collection. Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives.

Silver Reef was also very involved in drama. Performers put on plays in the Citizens Hall. Sometimes these plays reflected broader nationwide movements, such as the pro-temperance “Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" in 1882.[16] The Silver Reef Miner advertisement for the play was ironically printed next to six separate advertisements for establishments selling alcohol.

Silver Reef also had a significant Chinese population.[17] They created many fine Chinese porcelains, some of which were intricately hand-painted. In a memoir in 1930, Mark A. Pendleton recalled living in Silver Reef in his youth.[18] The Chinatown there was exotic to him. He described the colors, merchandise, people, and language as “a source of wonder.”[19]

Visiting Artists

Early artists from outside Southern Utah were inspired by Southern Utah’s scenic beauty. Prominent visiting artists of the nineteenth century included Thomas Moran and Frederick Dellenbaugh.[20] Northern Utah artists, such as Alfred William Lambourne and George M. Ottinger, also created early paintings of Southern Utah landscapes.[21]