R.H. Walker, Author

Back in the latter half of 2020, I had the privilege of completing an internship as a research assistant under Professor Ted Moore at Salt Lake Community College. My first published short story, The Arkham Autumn Festival (which you can read here on the blog, or in the Halloween 2025 edition of Lovecraftiana, available digitally on KU and in print!) was, in part, inspired by the things I learned while I was completing my personal research project as part of that internship.

I talk about some of my other inspirations for TAAF in my Arkham Autumn Festival retrospective, but I wanted to include my research paper on one of the primary inspirations, the No-Ni-Shee Festival, (also called the Festival of the Salt Princess), separately and in its entirety here. I think it’s a fascinating story; it unflinchingly exposes just how comfortable we’ve been with exploiting Indigenous art and imagery for literally centuries, and also showcases a great deal of pre-war economic anxiety. This event was not the first of its kind, nor was it the last, and I think its attempts to bring economic prosperity to the Wasatch Front are spiritually preserved in the many attempts being made to secure the area’s economy to this day.

Happy reading!

————————–

The No-Ni-Shee Festival: Boosterism and Guerilla Marketing in Pre-War Utah

By Rebekah Walker

Dec. 20, 2020

1916 was an uncertain year, both for Utah and the United States in general. Large technological innovations were coming to households across the country as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the country was on the brink of entering an international war, and a contentious presidential race consumed American politics. Amidst all of this, the Salt Lake Commercial Club was planning their annual fall carnival, working as they had for years to promote Salt Lake City as the Intermountain West’s center for commerce and culture.

The Wizard of the Wasatch festival was created in 1908 with the help of Fisher Harris, the Commercial Club’s secretary, but with change on the horizon, the Club decided that the festival needed to change too. The rebrand came in the festival’s last year and was accompanied by a large, unusual, and very ambitious marketing campaign. This campaign intended to give a boost to Utah commerce and bring attention to the efforts of local farmers, manufacturers, and businessmen.

Wizard of the Wasatch
Boosterism in Utah in the early 1900s is perhaps best defined by the story of Fisher Harris, a Virginia-born businessman who moved to Salt Lake in 1886. As secretary to the Commercial Club (which later became the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce), Harris spent many years promoting the interests of Utah-based businesses and trying to unite the interests of business and civic leaders. This later grew into the nationwide “See America First” movement, which saw Harris travel to several major U.S. cities with the hopes of convincing these different groups to “combine their interests and pool their resources . . . that through these efforts the West could present itself as a unified region, and attract the attention of the East.”_¹ Fig. 1 shows a caricature of Harris published in 1906, portraying the See America First movement and the Commercial Club as his “children”, his pet projects.

————————–

¹ _{Weingroff, Richard. “The National Old Trails Road Part 2.” U.S. Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration, www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/not2b.cfm. Last updated 27 June, 2017.}

————————–

^{(Fig. 1 – Brotze, E.F. “Fisher Harris, Secretary, Commercial Club, Executive Secretary, See America League, Salt Lake City.” Just For Fun: Cartoons and Caricatures of Men in Utah, Utah Department of Heritage and Arts, 10 Aug. 2016, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=428921. Originally published 1906.)}

————————–

Harris firmly believed that, by working together, the Western half of the United States could become just as influential as the more commercially-potent East, and he desperately wanted to make Salt Lake City the centerpiece of his vision. This was not an uncommon sentiment in Utah around this time; the efforts of the Commercial Club were focused around shedding the perceptions of the prototypical Mormon pioneer. They wanted to promote Salt Lake as a modern, progressive place of business. Said Richard Ian Kimball, in an article about boosterism for the Utah Historical Quarterly: “Salt Lakers seemed in the mood for boosting. Expanding in population, and shedding some of the provinciality that had characterized Mormon domination in the nineteenth century, the city stood poised to become a regional leader, if not a city of the first rank. Regionally, Salt Lake City competed directly with Denver, hoping one day to rival San Francisco. Civic boosters pulled no punches in promoting the city’s potential.”²

————————–

²_{(Kimball, Richard Ian. “‘The Right Sort to Bring to the City’: Jack Johnson, Boxing, and Boosterism in Salt Lake City.” Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 75, Number 4, 2007, uploaded 21 Feb. 2020, https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume75_2007_number4/s/10243237.)}

————————–

It is in this atmosphere that Fisher Harris first conceived the Wizard of the Wasatch festival, an extravagant three-day carnival inspired by St Louis’s “Veiled Prophet” carnival and Mardi Gras’s “Rex” parade, among others.³ The festival featured an electric light parade, powered by overhead power lines normally reserved for streetcars, as well as hundreds of booths from local businesses, ranging from small farmers, ranchers, and growers, to candy makers and confectioners, to large department stores like ZCMI, Auerbach, and Hamilton.

————————–

³  _{“Suggest Dazzling List of Names for Annual Carnival.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 25 June 1908, p. 12, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6qc17zn.}

————————–

The real draw of the Wizard of the Wasatch festival, however, came from its name. [See Fig. 2] The name was not conceived by Harris; rather, it was suggested by one P.E. Downey in a letter to the Salt Lake Herald-Republican.⁴ It quickly became the favorite, and in 1908 Harris announced that he had been appointed the “official scribe” for King Hatumai, the Wizard of the Wasatch, and his queen, Sirrah.⁵ Historian Ardis E. Parshall described the character in an article for the Salt Lake Tribune in 2007: “Hatumai was the great Spirit of the state, who eons ago laid down the precious metals and conditioned the soil to bring forth fruits and flowers. He guarded the Indians and guided the pioneers and miners, and once each year, he visited his capital city. If asked how they knew that, Salt Lakers would have feigned wide-eyed surprise at your ignorance – then told you to read HATUMAI backwards.”⁶ [See also Fig. 3] By all accounts, the mystical figure of Hatumai was a large part of the festival’s charm, and brought people from all over the Intermountain West to partake in the festival’s many offerings.

————————–

⁴ _{“Suggest Dazzling List of Names for Annual Carnival.”}

⁵_{It should be noted that “Hatumai” read backwards is “I Am Utah”, and similarly “Sirrah”, when read backwards, reads “Harris”, presumably for Fisher Harris himself.}

⁶_{Parshall, Ardis E. “Almost 100 Years Ago, Wasatch Had Its Own Wizard.” Salt Lake Tribune, 29 July 2007, https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/news/ci_6491669.}

————————–

^{(Fig. 2 – “Suggest Dazzling List of Names for Annual Carnival.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 25 June 1908, p. 12, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6qc17zn.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 3 – K.L.C. “I AM UTAH. (With Apologies to Walter J. Lampton.).” Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Aug. 1913, pp. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=14365939&q=HATUMAI&sort=rel.)}

————————–

Harris passed away from tuberculosis in November of 1909, just a year after the second Wizard of the Wasatch festival.⁷ Much of his work with the “See America First” movement died with him, but thanks to the efforts of the Commercial Club, the Wizard of the Wasatch festival continued to thrive and ran each autumn until 1915.

————————–

⁷_{Weingroff, 2017}

————————–

When it came time to begin planning the 1916 carnival, the U.S. was in an odd position. Europe was already two years into World War I, and President Woodrow Wilson, who was concurrently running for reelection, desperately lobbied Congress to let the U.S. join the war. Without records of the Commercial Club meetings held during this time, we cannot know exactly what the thought process was behind this last carnival was. We can, however, hypothesize. After seven years of festivals and a growing belief that the country would soon be at war, it is not unusual to assume that the Commercial Club believed this to be their last festival, and felt pressure to make it the biggest one yet. It is also possible that the war in Europe was affecting the global economy, and that Utah commerce was suffering as a result. A large-scale festival could kickstart Utah’s economy and provide prosperity for many years. Whatever the reason, the 1916 festival would be more sensational than any that had gone before it.

Copper Mines in Cottonwood
Marketing for the 1916 festival began in earnest when, on August 10, 1916, it was announced in three major Salt Lake City newspapers (the Salt Lake Tribune, the Salt Lake Herald-Republican, and the Salt Lake Telegram) that two unnamed miners had come across an ancient Native American copper mine while working in Big Cottonwood Canyon. This mine was reportedly filled with ancient artifacts and relics, including a large marble tablet that seemed to tell a story in petroglyphs. The papers lauded the find, claiming it as a victory for the archaeology community, and expressed excitement for the eventual translation of the tablet. [See Fig. 4 – 7]

————————–

^{(Fig. 4 – “Cave of Ancients Found in Upper Cottonwood.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 10 Aug. 1916, p. 12, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s63c087p.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 5 – “Mysterious Tablet Is Uncovered in Cottonwood.” Salt Lake Telegram, 10 Aug. 1916, p. 8, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s64n0c36.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 6 – “Upper Cottonwood Discloses Antique Mystery.” Salt Lake Tribune, 10 Aug. 1916, p. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s63r1m53.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 7 – Close up of the illustration provided in Figure 6. The caption reads: “Discolored marble tablet, covered with crude drawings and hieroglyphics, which was found at the entrance of a large underground chamber in mineral openings existing in Wasatch mountain tops.”)}

————————–

The next two days, August 11 and 12, saw additional details about the finds, including illustrations of ancient pottery and the aforementioned tablets, as well as a number of “letters to the editor”, speculating on the origins of the artifacts and potential meanings behind the petroglyphs. [See Fig. 8 – 13] Nearly all of these letters are featured in all three papers, identical down to the names of the senders. This, combined with the fact that the articles were worded identically, indicate that this was a coordinated press release acting as advertising for the festival. It differs significantly from what we might expect to see reported were the find legitimate.

————————–

^{(Fig. 8 – “Cave Yields More Relics.” Salt Lake Telegram, 11 Aug. 1916, p. 18, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s60v9m8k.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 9 – “Interesting Potteries Are Discovered.” Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Aug. 1916, p. 8, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s62j753q.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 10 – “Virgin Copper Picture Rock Found in Mine.” Salt Lake Tribune, 12 Aug. 1916, p. 8, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6rj5bs6.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 11 – Closeup of image displayed in Fig. 10. The caption reads: “More of the figures and symbols discovered in mysterious underground chamber in upper Cottonwood, which are copied and reproduced to see if anyone can decipher them.”)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 12 – “Picture Writing Found on Virgin Copper Tablet.” Salt Lake Telegram, 12 Aug. 1916, p. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6w393r4.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 13 – “Another Find at Cottonwood Stirs Archaeologists.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 12 Aug. 1916, p. 2, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6tx7qgw.)}

————————–

The impression that these articles were falsified is only confirmed with the articles released on August 13, 1916, which announced that, while trying to widen the opening into the ancient mine, a heavy explosives blast caused a cave-in, burying the archaeological finds under several tons of rubble, never to be seen again. [See Fig. 14 – 16] However, providence had smiled on the people of Salt Lake for one more day, as Herbert Auerbach⁸, president of the Auerbach Company and (not coincidentally) the head of the festival committee⁹, had managed to entirely translate the petroglyphs found on the cave walls, the images published on August 10 [see again Fig. 7.]

————————–

⁸_{Murphy, Miriam B. “Herbert S. Auerbach, Renaissance Man.” History Blazer, Mar. 1996, https://historytogo.utah.gov/herbert-auerbach/.}

⁹_{“Will Invite Princess To Come Next Year.” Salt Lake Telegram, 17 Sept. 1916, p. 2, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6030010.}

————————–

^{(Fig. 14 – “Heavy Blast Ruins Indian Copper Mine Workings.” Salt Lake Telegram, 13 Aug. 1916, p. 25, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6rb8c28.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 15 – “Mystery of Ancient Copper Mine Is Solved.” Salt Lake Tribune, 13 Aug. 1916, p. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s63f5gz5.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 16 – “Ancient Marble Tablet Unfolds Romantic Tale.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 13 Aug. 1916, p. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6q56zq1.)}

————————–

Princess of Salt
Auerbach’s tale is as somber in tone as it is fantastical in subject matter. The tale recounts the tragedy of No-Ni-Shee, a Ute princess who lives in a large dwelling with her father, the Great Spirit. Each day he departs their mountain to make the world a more beautiful place for his daughter, with strict instruction that she is not to leave their home until he deems it fit for her. One day, No-Ni-Shee’s boredom and curiosity overtakes her, and she decides to leave, despite her father’s warnings. She climbs through the roof of their mountain home and is so awed by the beauty around her that she accidentally slips down the face of the mountain, landing in a patch of wildflowers on the shore of a sweet, clear lake. Fearing her father’s retribution, she hides on the lake shore, and does not answer him when he calls for her. After this he rebukes her, saying that she will never be able to return home. Mourning the loss of her comfortable home, No-Ni-Shee begins to weep, and she sheds so many tears that she eventually turns the sweet lake bracken, creating the Great Salt Lake. She eventually turns to salt, and it is said that you can still hear her cries when the wind blows on the shores of the lake.¹⁰

————————–

¹⁰ _{“Mystery of Ancient Copper Mine Is Solved.” Salt Lake Tribune, 13 Aug. 1916, p. 11, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s63f5gz5.}

————————–

The Commercial Club, the article states, is so touched by this tragic tale that they have decided to rebrand the 1916 Wizard of the Wasatch Festival after No-Ni-Shee, formally renaming it the Festival of the Salt Princess. This announcement includes a new festival logo – an image of the Salt Princess weeping over the Great Salt Lake. [See Fig. 17] The festival would be held September 11 – 13, 1916, in Salt Lake City.

————————–

^{(Fig. 17 – A closeup of the advertisement for the Festival of the Salt Princess, as seen in fig. 14, 15, and 16.)}

————————–

Tales from the Land of the Salt Princess
After this first sensationalist marketing push, the festival committee knew they had to maintain interest in the festival for the next four weeks. Auerbach, working with John “Jack” Held Jr. (who would later go on to become famous for his Jazz Age comic art, including work for Life magazine and author F. Scott Fitzgerald)¹¹, wrote and illustrated six additional “ancient Indian tales”, pledging to give any profits made from the stories to the festival budget. These tales were advertised as “Tales from the Land of the Salt Princess”, and were published in the same local papers that had hosted the initial advertising push (the Tribune, the Telegram, and the Herald-Republican), between August 24 and September 7, 1916.

————————–

¹¹_{Carmack, Noel A. “Before the Flapper: The Utah Beginnings of John Held, Jr.” Utah Historical Quarterly, 1998, https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume66_1998_number4/s/10360460.}

————————–

A quick synopsis of each of these tales follows.

(Disclaimer: many of these stories contain outdated wording, opinions, and depictions of the indigenous Ute tribes, especially towards the women of these tribes. The author of this article does not condone these views, nor does she believe that these views have a place in our modern society, but she does believe that the tales must be preserved in their original form so that future critical analysis may be done in good faith.)

————————–

1 – “The Indian Legend of Why Children Like Elephants, Skookum Hunter and the Animal-With-Tail-at-Both-Ends”, published August 24, 1916: A hunter, while searching for prey, comes across a traveler with a magnificent animal companion (later revealed to be an elephant). He convinces the traveler to bring it to his village so the children can see it. The townspeople love the beast so much that, when the traveler refuses to part with it for any price, the hunter kills him so that the elephant isn’t taken away. [See Fig. 18]

^{(Fig. 18 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Legend Tells of First Elephant in Indian History.” Salt Lake Telegram, 24 Aug. 1916, p. 9, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s66d71gv.)}

————————–

2 – “The Indian Legend of Why Women Wear Furs in the Summertime, She-Wears-Furs-in-Summer and The White Fox From the Land of the Salt Princess.”, published August 27, 1916: A young man, who is known locally for being very slow, falls in love with a beautiful girl, and in order to marry her, he hunts a white fox so he can give its fur to her as a gift. [See Fig. 19]

^{(Fig. 19 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Old Indian Folk-Lore Forecasts Today’s Fashions.” Salt Lake Telegram, 27 Aug. 1916, p. 27, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6c83hqf.)}

————————–

3 – “Old-Man-Work-Around-the-House Paints-Swell-Tailor-Made Dress; All the Neighbors Voted Mrs. to Be as Beautiful as No-Ni-Shee, the Salt Princess”, published August 29, 1916: A man wishes to go fishing with his friends, but is unable to when his wife catches him sneaking out. As punishment, she makes him paint her dress for an upcoming party, and he paints it so well that she wins the costume contest, though in retribution he also paints a fly on her back so that the other partygoers will swat at it. [See Fig. 20 & 21]

^{(Fig. 20 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Beautiful Indian Legend is Told.” Salt Lake Tribune, 29 Aug. 1916, p. 7, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s69g6f17.)}

^{(Fig. 21 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Tale of First Home Dressmaker Told in Quaint Old Indian Legend.” Salt Lake Telegram, 29 Aug. 1916, p. 8, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s63v0qpq.)}

————————–

4 – “The Indian legend of how Mrs. Ma tried to cop a servant girl from the valley of No-Ni-Shee, the Salt Princess, showing that the servant problem and the want ad date back into remote antiquity”, published August 31, 1916: An overworked housewife asks her husband to find a serving girl to help her with some of the chores around the house. After he teases her, provoking her to throw assorted kitchen utensils at him, he goes out and carves a wanted ad on the side of a cliff. The girl he ends up hiring, however, is lazy, and only ends up creating even more work for the wife. Mrs. Ma eventually fires the girl, and each time she complains about the amount of work she must do, her husband reminds her once again of the mistake she made in hiring the last girl. [See Fig. 22 & 23]

^{(Fig. 22 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Mrs. Ma Tries to Trap a Servant Girl.” Salt Lake Tribune, 31 Aug. 1916, p. 13, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6rb7xtc.)}

^{(Fig. 23 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Servant Problem Dates ‘Way Back in History.” Salt Lake Tribune, 31 Aug. 1916, p. 6, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6w96hp4.)}

————————–

5 – “The Indian legend of how the odor was put in the Great Salt Lake”, published September 3, 1916: A man hears stories of the vapors of the Great Salt Lake, which apparently have great healing properties. After the vapors do wonders to heal his epileptic son, the man wants to share this power with others who cannot afford to make the trip, and so bottles all of the healing vapors of the Great Salt Lake, leaving only the more odoriferous scents. [See Fig. 24 & 25]

^{(Fig. 24 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Indian Legend of Origin of Perfume at the Shore of Great Salt Lake.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 3 Sept. 1916, p. 39, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6th9sgb.)}

^{(Fig. 25 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Who Put the Smell in the Lake?” Salt Lake Telegram, 3 Sept. 1916, p. 39, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6d80jvt.)}

————————–

6 – “The Indian Legend of the First Time the Boys Painted the Town Red”, published September 6, 1916: A group of young men get so drunk that they begin destroying property and are jailed overnight; however, the judge lets them off with a warning, dismissing their actions as “a few shenanigans”. [See Fig. 26 & 27]

^{(Fig. 26 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Old Secrets are Revealed in Legend.” Salt Lake Telegram, 6 Sept. 1916, p. 5, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s69g6v9s.)}

^{(Fig. 27 – Auerbach, Herbert S., and Jack Held. “Indian Legend of the First Time the Boys Painted the Town Red.” Salt Lake Tribune, 7 Sept. 1916, p. 5, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s62j7545.)}

————————–

It is easily noted that these stories are far less evocative of an “old legend” than the original No-Ni-Shee legend was. They invoke modern stereotypes far more, depicting lazy husbands, nagging wives, women who wear furs and women who can’t find good help, all of which sound less at home in an ancient legend than they would in a silent film of the time. The discrepancy between the tone of the original No-Ni-Shee story and the following stories is unexplained, but is likely due to a number of factors around the initial planning for the festival; again, without the notes from the Commercial Club’s planning meetings, there is much surrounding the planning of this marketing scheme that we simply do not know.

The No-Ni-Shee Arch
Preparations for the festival continued; a collection of minutes from the Salt Lake County Commission reveals that the festival committee appealed to the County Commission for $500 for the purposes of “advertising Salt Lake County”. [See Fig. 28 – 33]. In addition to appealing to government bodies for funds, the committee applied to multiple private organizations for their donations; the Elks lodge seemed particularly eager to participate in the festival [see Fig. 34 & 35].

————————–

^{(Fig. 28 – 33: A collection of minutes from the Salt Lake County Commission. These are currently in storage at the Salt Lake County Archives in West Valley City, UT. Series 03790, Reel 17, Minutes Book T. The following images were taken by the author of this article digitally from microfilm.)}

^{(Fig 28 – August 16, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 29 – August 30, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 30 – September 6, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 31 – September 11, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 32 – September 15, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 33 – September 22, 1916)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 34 – “Elks Are Planning for Unique Feature.” Salt Lake Tribune, 5 Sept. 1916, p. 16, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6d22qzx.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 35 – “Elks Plan to Aid Carnival.” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 5 Sept. 1916, p. 12, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6058mrk.)}

————————–

One last piece of extravagant marketing would be shown before the festival occurred, but this time it did not take the form of fabricated Ute legends. Instead, it took the form of a large wooden arch. Images of the No-Ni-Shee arch show that it was constructed with a number of lattices; the plan was to spray the arch with salt water and let the salt crystalize, literally creating a “salt arch”. The existing photographs, unfortunately, don’t do the sparkling arch justice, but it certainly gained attention. [See Fig. 36] The arch was located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, straddling the intersection of South Temple and Main Street, right besides ZCMI and just across the street from the entrance to Temple Square. Thousands of people would have passed this arch every day, as demonstrated by its post-festival use as an advertisement for the Republican party. [See Fig. 37]

————————–

^{(Fig. 36 – Shipler, Harry. “No-Ni-Shee Arch, Main Street.” Shipper Commercial Photographs, Utah Department of Heritage and Arts, 23 Apr. 2002, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6445zq1. Photograph taken 21 Sept., 1916.)}

————————–

^{(Fig. 37 – Photographer Unknown. “Political Campaigns — Sutherland P.2.” Utah State Historical Society Classified Photo Section, Utah Department of Heritage and Arts, 20 Dec. 2013, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6ks7jg8. Photograph taken 1916.)}

————————–

Conclusion
The Commercial Club had the means to promote the No-Ni-Shee festival lavishly, and they did so with gusto. Figure 33 shows that the festival cost approximately $3800 (calculated for inflation, this would be worth over $90,000 in 2020), though we don’t know how much money they were able to make back, nor do we currently know how many people attended the festival. We also cannot extrapolate how well it may have done by examining the next year’s festival, as the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, and the Commercial Club, along with the rest of the state, focused their efforts on the war.

Even after the war ended, the Commercial Club did not revive the Wizard of the Wasatch festival, and eventually the Commercial Club morphed into what we now recognize as the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. The Wizard of the Wasatch festival was eventually lost to memory, but persists as a moment in our history of uncertain times. What may have become of this festival had the war not occured is unknown, but it still serves as an interesting insight into Utah’s past.

————————–

Special thanks to Prof. Ted Moore. Special thanks also to Cherry, from the Salt Lake City Public Library; Daniel, from the Salt Lake County Archives; Jenean, from the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce; and Tad, from the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah; for all their help with my research inquiries.