This is the place!

This exclamation is traditionally attributed to Brigham Young at the end of the Latter-day Saint pioneer trek west, when the first company entered the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. Young, then leading the church after Joseph Smith’s death, had been ill during parts of the journey and is often described as viewing the valley from the mouth of Emigration Canyon (or a nearby vantage point) before indicating it as the intended settlement site. The phrase functions in LDS memory as a decisive moment of arrival and selection of a permanent gathering place in the Great Basin, though contemporary, verbatim documentation of the exact wording is limited and later retellings helped fix the line in popular form.

In its familiar use, “This is the place!” compresses a complex historical decision into a single, declarative act of recognition. It conveys finality after displacement—an assertion that wandering and uncertainty have ended and that a community can root itself in a chosen landscape. The line also carries a providential implication in LDS tradition: the location is not merely practical but confirmed as the right place to build Zion, turning geography into destiny. As a cultural shorthand, it frames settlement as purposeful and unified, emphasizing leadership, collective endurance, and the transformation of an austere valley into a promised home.