(soft music) - Thanks for joining us for this special edition of "This is Utah".

I'm your host, Liz Adeola.

I have always had a keen fascination with history.

To think you could pick up a book right off the shelf and travel back in time.

Turn the page with me, if you will, to Utah's rich history as we explore it through the lens of the Wasatch Mountain Club.

They've dedicated 100 plus years to recreation and preservation in Utah.

Then check out the expert craftsmanship of story and sculpture with a larger than life tribute to Utah's very own, Martha Hughes Canon.

But first, meet the great granddaughter of a transcontinental railroad worker.

Our mission is to keep history alive by honoring the impact Chinese-Americans had on the growth and development of the wild west.

- [Narrator] Support for "This is Utah" comes from the Willard L Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation, the Utah Office of Tourism, the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation and the contributing members of PBS Utah.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - May of 2019 marked the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike in Utah.

The transcontinental railroad connected a nation from east to west.

Those same tracks are now connecting us to stories that are often forgotten.

The stories of Chinese railroad workers and the foreign land they helped build.

(train engine chugging) (train honking) Look at that.

(train rattling) - My name is Margaret Yee.

I'm the fourth generation of the Central Pacific Railroad worker.

My great-grandfather, Wong is a chef at the Central Pacific Railroad.

My great-grandfather Andy Ng is a laborer at the Central Pacific Railroad worker.

This statue is Chinese railroad worker.

Most of the Chinese railroad worker is from Canton, China, that my hometown.

Because of the shortage of the railroad worker in here, they suggest that to invite the Chinese people to work at the railroad.

Everybody against it.

They say the Chinese is so little, they're so small.

How can they do the job?

It's a hard work.

But the Leland Stanford said, "The Chinese people they can build a great wall.

Of course they can build a railroad."

- This is the Central Pacific, and that shows the Chinese railroad camps right here.

And this is the train going through the Alkali deserts of Nevada.

So these workers, a lot of them were men and they came over and they left some of their families in China, right?

- Yeah, they knew that they come to this new land that they had to separate from their family.

They care for their family, they want to feed the family that's why they come over here, you know?

So they send the back the money to the homeland to support their family.

(tools clanking) And about 12,000 Chinese people working at a transcontinental railroad, it take them one month to be coming over here.

They do all the dangerous job inside to a tunnel to light the nitroglycerin, light the dynamite.

It's very dangerous.

That's why about 1200 people, they get killed.

(soft music) The east is from Nebraska, the Irish, they building the railroad and the west is from Sacramento, the Chinese railroad worker building the railroad, but they discrimination.

The Irish they pay $32, they pay for the room and the board and everything but the Chinese people, they work there, their wages under $26.

(soft music) The record-breaking is they did 10 mile in 12 hours, the west and the east are kind of a race, see who do faster.

Of course the Chinese won the race.

Because our ancestor is the railroad worker, group of us start to go to Promontory Summit, Utah to pay commemorate to our ancestor.

We always go there every year, it's been 30 years now.

(train engine steaming) (crowd cheering) - [Margaret] Because 150 years coming up, we would like to do more things to welcome the world's people come over here to remember our ancestor and do the big celebration for 150 years and anniversary.

- Today at the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike Ceremony marking the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad is a day to commemorate, the contribution of railroads and the contribution and sacrifices of the railroad workers, including approximately 12,000 or more Chinese laborers who risked everything to make the Transcontinental Railroad a reality.

- [Margaret] When they did that champagne picture, none of the Chinese were there.

(bell clanging) - [Margaret] Because of the hard work the Chinese railroad worker did, the railroad supposed to be 14 year a complete but they did it at seven year.

Chinese help build the railroad, the railroad help build America.

(knife chopping) (water running) (speaking in foreign language) During the Transcontinental Railroad the Chinese railroad worker they insist that they have Chinese food.

at the contract they request a Chinese chef so they can enjoy their own Chinese cuisine.

You live in a country, the culture is different than your own culture and then you eating your own Chinese food, it is very comforting.

And this also link you to your own heritage.

- Wow, you got to try it.

Look pretty colorful, huh?

- [Speaker] Yeah.

- I born in Hong Kong.

I came into the United States, 1962.

At that time is not that many Chinese people at all, about 1000 Chinese people.

I have a desire to helping other people.

My passion is to share my culture.

I watched Utah grow and expand.

I have the desire to help other people.

I appreciate everybody recognizing my little contribution.

And I'm happy to give back to the community.

I own the Jade Cafe for 55 years, is iconic Chinese restaurant.

It's the longest operating Chinese restaurant in the state of Utah.

And our restaurant, the business is very good.

We are open for 24 hour at a time.

The young and the old they come to play and have the enjoyment.

My great-grandfather is a chef in the railroad.

So doing restaurant is running in our blood.

(people chattering) Oh, this picture.

You can see how hard working they are is how heavy the rail track is.

My great-grandfather tell my grandfather, give him a word of wisdom, and he said, (speaking in foreign language).

What it mean is, honesty and righteousness is very very important.

It has been passed down through the generations.

The Chinese railroad worker they not just in help building, the first transcontinental railroad, they bridge between the two country.

They had the foresight and desire to create a better life for their family.

And they had the courage and willing to travel across the Pacific Ocean, come to a new land and separate from their family.

With the hard work and sacrifice and contribution, they allowed the future generation to have the opportunity to come to this great land of America and to achieve the American dream.

(soft music) (guitar playing) (children chattering) (guitar playing) - [Male Speaker] There you go.

(guitar playing) - The Wasatch Mountain Club is a social organization that celebrates the great landscapes of Utah, like the mountains you see behind me.

The group spent the last century fostering respect for Utah's natural wonders so everyone can enjoy nature's beauty.

(light music) - [Liz] Utah's outdoor recreation industry attracts global visitors to experience the beauty of the state's national parks, monuments and forests.

Today, outdoor recreation generates $737 million in state and local tax revenues.

And the industry contributes $3.9 billion in wages and salaries in Utah.

Utah's outdoor recreation opportunities contribute to an unparalleled quality of life that attracts newcomers and keeps people close to the mountains and deserts they love.

But the lure of Utah's great outdoors is hardly a new phenomenon.

In fact, early sports and recreation enthusiasts created the Wasatch Mountain Club incorporated in 1920.

Intrepid club members with basic equipment pioneered the state's skiing industry.

They explored iconic hikes and ventured into caves and rivers.

100 years later, their legacy of adventure was recognized at a ceremony at the Utah state Capitol.

- So in recognition of our 100th anniversary, the governor's office has prepared a congratulatory letter.

I'd like to welcome.

Deputy Chief of Staff, Mike Mower, to present and read the proclamation.

- It is with great pleasure that I congratulate the Wasatch Mountain Club on the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Over the course of its 100 years, the Wasatch Mountain Club has grown to become the oldest and the largest continuously operating outdoor recreation club in Utah with over 700 activities annually.

In recognition of the Wasatch Mountain Club's 100th anniversary and it's significant contributions to the state of Utah, the Governor wishes to formally congratulate the club and its members.

So please, right now applaud yourselves.

(crowd clapping) (soft music) - I was lucky to be born in Salt Lake City, okay?

And when you live with the mountains, if you have any adventure in your soul at all, you want to know what the hell is in up there and whether it's Lone Peak or whether it's, it's an interesting experience to climb Mount Olympus for instance the first time, and of course not only in this area, but in Utah, period.

The scenery we have is so fantastic, you know?

North, south, east, or west.

- [Liz] Long before trail maps detailed the path to Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, members of the Wasatch Mountain Club were the very first to hike the iconic sandstone summit.

Awestruck by the incredible formations in the Timpanogos Cave, Wasatch Mountain Club members encouraged the National Park Service to open the attraction so more people could hike the steep trail and enter the cavern.

(soft music) Some of the first people to share the story of Utah's greatest snow on earth were members of the Wasatch Mountain Club.

With their wood skis and elk hide skins they hiked peaks before chairlifts existed.

Then later operated one of the first ski tows in Utah at Brighton.

Their love of powder gave rise to what would become Utah's booming ski industry.

- There wasn't much in the way of Alpine skiing per se.

There were people that would ski around the mountains and toured around in the back country with the Wasatch Mountain Club.

But in terms of masses of people skiing, there wasn't a whole lot of that going on.

- Well, to understand skiing, you have to know that it was basically inaccessible during winter.

There was no real major road going up the canyon, let alone one that could be traversed in the winter time.

So the only way you could get into it during the 1920s, would be to come in from Park City.

So you would go in from the mines in Park City, crossover Scotts Pass get into Brighton spend the night there.

Next day you'd go up over Twin Lakes Pass to Alta and spend the night there.

And they did that, there were some fairly tough individuals that did these trips, primarily members of the Wasatch Mountain Club.

This was a touring type of a thing.

You didn't go up and ski down and go up and ski down.

The photographs I have of 1920 skiing, rarely show a turn let alone a linked turn.

The equipment was very crude by today's standards.

You had basically a toe strap and a heel strap and that was about it.

- And the trip from the valley up here to Brighton was very long and arduous, and it was really difficult for them and almost impossible for them to come up and back in one day.

So they decided they needed to build the building where they could stay in overnight and then that way they could enjoy themselves.

- In 1928 they thought that they should build a lodge there and so they started putting together a lodge for their members.

Well, we're still working on it actually, it's an excellent, it's on a national historic register now as the place where skiing and recreation first became popular in the Wasatch Mountains.

- [Liz] That's what's amazing about the history of the club, all of the places that they hiked and snowshoed and skied all the peaks that they've been at.

I find it interesting that this canyon and up here by Brighton is where they chose to build the lodge.

(slow music) - I think the minute you walk in the door you can just see the character of the building.

The windows are still original.

We have people coming in looking at the windows all the time telling us how they would love to have these 90 year old windows.

The fireplace is made from granite that was mined around here.

It's just got its own special little feeling when you're here and you're sitting in front of the fireplace.

So again, just walk in and just look at the logs and look at the ceiling and the beams.

It's just amazing.

- [Liz] Since 2010 the historic lodge has been under the care of a nonprofit group that's separate from the Wasatch Mountain Club.

- You know these old buildings take money and it was getting up in age they decided that it was best to spin it off into the non-profit.

You just look at it and you just wanna keep it going.

- I've been relatively successful and I did have the opportunity to donate $50,000 to the preservation of the lodge.

That thing should stay there forever.

(soft music) (upbeat music) - Martha Hughes Cannon or Mattie broke boundaries here 125 years ago as the first female elected to a state Senate in the US.

She fought tirelessly for women's right to vote, so it's only fitting that a statue to honor Maddie stand tall in our nation's Capitol and a Utah artist is bringing Mattie to life.

(upbeat music) - This is Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon.

She's a Welsh immigrant who settled here in Utah as a young lady.

And the thing that stuck out to me about Dr. Cannon here is that she is the first ever woman that was elected to the office of State Senator in the United States and she ran against her husband.

And that just was like a little detail that just kind of stuck out to me I'm like, what?

Interesting, you know that's kind of cool.

And then as I got to know more about her that she, you know, was a medical professional, she was a suffragist, she was an orator.

I just really impressed with her.

The primary reason why I'm here working on this right now is because there's been a push thanks to primarily Better Days 2020 to have more equal representation of prominent women in the history of the United States represented in statues.

Not only in Statuary Hall in DC, but all over the country.

I think she's a better representation of, you know, Utah as a whole, hardworking, industrious and problem solving, that's just the type of person she was.

And so I think it's really cool that we have her representing our state, our people.

I always wanted to be an artist.

I didn't know I wanted to be a sculptor until in high school my senior year I went to an artist's studio, Blair Buswell.

So he took us to a foundry and it just blew me away like all the work that went into it.

So growing up on a farm in Idaho, growing up building homes with my dad I just love the process.

(metal clinking) Every time I go to the foundry, if they're pouring bronze, I'll stop what I'm doing and go and watch them do it even though I've seen it a hundred times it's just, it never gets old.

So I'm watching these guys dressed in these silver protective suits, dipping this big glowing red crucible of molten bronze.

And when it comes out it's as viscous as water.

If you melt it at that melting point it's just like, it'll fill in all these cracks.

And then they literally just like take a hammer and start pounding on it after the bronze cools and break the shell off.

And it's so cool cause the bronze has, you can see fingerprints and thumb prints like that's how much detail it captures.

Here's like the bottom of her dress the base.

These are sections of her dress.

These are fitting really really well though you should see.

Utah County's an interesting place it's not only full of sculptors, it's full of artists.

This is one of the most interesting things about being a sculptor.

Casting things in bronze is something that I don't have a lot of control over.

I leave it up to a talented artisan to put the pieces together.

Overall, I look at this thing and I'm just really, really happy with the direction it's going.

And that looks just really good.

Sculptors specifically come here because Utah County happens to be a place where there's four large fine art foundries that cast in bronze.

And you don't find that anywhere else.

Which is also cool because the statue of Martha isn't just sculpted by me, it's also cast in bronze here in Utah, worked on by people that live here.

In fact, even the bronze that she'll be cast in, they're using copper from Utah.

It's cool, she'll have a part of Utah in her.

(soft music) For me she represents my heritage as well as the heritage for many people who live here in this state.

I'm also a descendant of people that came from other countries and because of their religious affiliation, they moved here to what they called Zion and wanted to settle here and make this a beautiful place.

From the outside looking in, people can see faith as a hindrance to success almost like you have to compromise your faith in order to succeed.

And she wasn't successful in spite of her faith she was successful and driven because of her faith, because she thought and believed that there was a lot more to life than just the status quo that you can rise above your station.

And we should make life easier for people so more people can better their lives.

And it ended up being that it did better our lives healthcare wise, economically and made life better for women to have more of a voice not only in Utah, but in the nation.

(soft music) Women could vote in Utah before anywhere else.

We just celebrated the 150th year of women voting in Utah.

I love that Utah had somebody as far back as we did.

We've had strong influential women early on in our history.

So that's cool.

(soft music) This statue will go to Washington, DC, the US Capitol in Statuary Hall.

To me, that's a little overwhelming artistically just because some of the artists I admire most have artwork there.

There's the emotional side of it about who she is and what it represents as Martha Hughes Cannon, what she has meant to the state and what she continues to inspire, and that's overwhelming enough, but at the same time I know Mattie belongs there.

I hope I've created something that's excellent enough that the artistic integrity belongs there as well.

(soft music) - Okay, I am adding the National Statuary Hall to my travel bucket list.

Have you been?

Let us know.

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Use it as your bookmark, until the next episode.

Until then, I'm Liz Adeola and This is Utah.

- [Narrator] Support for This Is Utah comes from the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation, the Utah Office of Tourism, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation and the contributing members of PBS Utah.

Thank you.

(upbeat music)