I’ll admit right off that I’m not an expert when it comes to shipping products around the world. Stuff I need gets magically stocked on store shelves or in a website on the internet. I do have friends and clients in the shipping business but frankly, talking about ‘containers’ doesn’t float my retail boat. Yet, we’re getting plenty of news these days about Utah’s desire to establish an ‘inland port’ west of the new prison, which is west of the new airport.

What does an inland port do? It is a stop for containers to be loaded and unloaded, items shipped off again after being repackaged into lots to thousands of destinations. In effect it makes Utah a global trade port that supposedly is very cost effective and allows for customs to operate here to open and inspect the containers before the inventory moves elsewhere. Proponents here, like Derek Miller, the president and CEO of World Trade Center Utah and co-chair of the Inland Port Committee sees Salt Lake as a hub for international business-especially because we are one of the fastest growing economies in the United States. To my pea brain, this all seems silly to come here since we have ports along the coast to do those very things.

Ah, but talking to my friends who own small businesses trying to get goods these days lends a different light on the subject. Apparently, container ship congestion at ALL North American ports is crazy right now. If you visit the Marine Traffic website (marinetraffic.com) you can see the massive shipping traffic in real time anywhere in the world. Look to our West Coasts ports like San Diego, L.A./Long Beach and Oakland and you can view the congestion there yourself. When I checked in, I saw at least 30 ships sitting and waiting to unload in the L.A./Long Beach harbor. According to the website Expeditiors.com this situation is being driven by the “unprecedented surge in demand” and “vessels are experiencing  severe delays for berth windows once they arrive at the terminal for discharge.” The lack of laborers, warehouses, delivery trucks and rail cars is stressing out the system, not to mention effects of Covid closures in California over the past year. The Journal of Commerce writes that they see no relief in sight especially for LA-LB congestion but predicts that there will be “Double-digit trans-Pacific volume growth projected through the first half of the year and at ports around the world.”

Locally, I don’t know how our proposed Inland Port can help if you can’t get the damned containers off ships. While we sit at home during Covidtime we’re browsing the web and ordering too much stuff-explaining some delays in packages. My friends in retail can’t stock their shelves like they used to, and worse, my friends in the building trades are seeing massive shortage deliveries in tile, carpet, lumber, steel products and more. Even the cost of old containers to use for tiny homes has gone up-if you can find one.

National monuments in Utah include the obvious: Timpanogas Cave, Bear’s Ears, the Grand Staircase-Escalante, Hovenweep, Dinosaur, Zion, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Capitol Reef, etc. State monuments also include This Is the Place, the Seagull Monument at Temple Square, The Eagle Gate Monument on State Street and South Temple, Joseph Smiths birth place and many others.  I would think most people in our state have visited or have heard of our precious national monuments but very few would be pressed to know where some of these State monuments are located.

Brigham Young is buried just east of Temple Square at 140 East First Avenue. Surely, you’ve driven by it a million times if you live in or near the Avenues. At the site is a small garden with four plaques dedicated to the Mormon Pioneers (two of which are dedicated to well-known Mormon hymns).  The Seagull Monument is inside Temple Square and is dedicated to ‘the miracle of the gulls’ when supposedly Western Gulls descended out of nowhere to eat the invasion of Mormon Crickets that were annihilating the crops of the early pioneers in the year 1848. A block east are the metal arches above the intersection of State Street and South Temple. These were erected in 1859 and commemorates the original entrance to Brigham Young’s property at the mouth of City Creek Canyon. You’ve driven under this if you head up to the state capitol building.  It was originally topped by a wooden eagle (on display at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum) but was replaced with a 4,000-pound bronze bird with a 20’ wingspan.

Why do I mention monuments? One potential site has been in the news lately because a local developer wanted to build a high-end celebrity rehab center right above it, making access to the public difficult or not at all. I tell of our legendary beautiful Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. Legend has it that an indigenous girl named Norita fell in love with a rival tribe boy named Grey Eagle. The classic Romeo and Juliet-like story went simply that elders from both tribes found out about the forbidden love and told her that they had killed her lover, and so she leapt over the falls to join him in the spirit world. Mother Nature felt badly for the girl and turned her hair into a bridal veil of falling water. It’s a drop dead gorgeous site because it’s a year-round stream of water that flows 607 feet down from springs above Cascade Mountain there in the canyon. It’s a natural wonder and I don’t believe this kind of thing should ever be owned privately.

Luckily Utah County Commissioners placed the county-owned falls in a protected conservation easement last year. This pissed off the potential developer who then filed a lawsuit. Luckily Richard Losee, the developer, has now backed off of the lawsuit since Utah County has asked state legislators to designate this a state monument this year which will protect this natural landmark for future generations.

https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/212