Brigham Young Winter Home

History

Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spent the winter months in this St. George home through the 1870s, seeking relief from the harsher winters of northern Utah. The adobe-and-wood house and its adjacent office have been restored and furnished to reflect their 1870s appearance, and the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

The first snowbird

The pattern is familiar now and was not then. St. George sits low and far south, and its winters are mild by Utah standards — the same climatic fact that today brings tens of thousands of seasonal residents down from colder states every winter. Young was doing, in the 1870s, what the region's entire winter economy is now built on, roughly a century before it had a name.

His presence had practical consequences too. A church president wintering in St. George meant decisions were made here for part of each year, which gave a remote desert settlement an influence out of proportion to its size — and it is part of why the temple and tabernacle were built at the scale they were.

Visiting

The winter home is at 67 West 200 North in downtown St. George. Guided tours lead through the restored house and office and take about half an hour, offering a look at pioneer-era domestic life. The site is free and within an easy walk of the Tabernacle and Town Square.

More on this: historic sites in St. George and the St. George Tabernacle.