Spanish Fork update

So, awhile ago in another post I mentioned I would eventually do an update on a situation in Spanish Fork, and a Facebook post that I eventually had to delete because I caused chaos in Spanish Fork apparently. 

Back on in late March of this year I was in Spanish Fork and went to check out the old Dominguez Escalante monument to see how it was looking after the trials of winter. And to put it plainly it had not survived winter well. I noticed that up at the top of the monument it seemed to be crumbling even more. Here are some photos that I took.

As you can see the corners were really starting to break apart.

Anyway, on April 5th I was driving past the park and looked over and noticed that it seemed like the monument wasn't there anymore. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Was I just not looking in the correct spot?

So I got out of my car down the road a bit and walked back to the park. And sure enough the monument was gone, all that was there was a patch of dirt.

I thought, wow, the city must have noticed how bad the condition was and decided to take it down. Was this announced though? Did everyone know this was going to be done?

So I went to the city's website and looked through the past few months of city council notes or meetings (or whatever you want to call them) but saw nothing there about removal of the monument. I went to their Facebook page to see if something was there but there was nothing, and a Google search came up blank.

So I joined a Spanish Fork Historical Facebook page just to pose the question and see if anyone else knew what was going on. Boy, was that a mistake. I posted the photo of the dirt patch and almost immediately started to get responses. Nobody knew they were going to do that!

Well, the conversation stayed civil for a few hours, mostly with people just surprised as to what was happening. There were some comments however from some disgruntled residents about Spanish Fork always taking away things that have been there for years and years "in the name of progress."

Then things soon started to get out of control.

Some people who are new to the area started to say things about people that have lived there all their lives and are not welcoming to new people. 

Then people started to turn things into a "Mormon" vs "Catholic" issue since everything in Utah has to at some point turn into a blame Mormon thing.

Then some a few people who seem to have a long standing dislike for each other started to come on there and began to discuss other topics that weren't even about the monument. 

Then other people started posting videos showing the monument that is still there with the bronze statues of Dominguez, Escalante, and the native american guide and asking what all the fuss was about. They had completely missed the point that I was referring to the crumbling cement monument.

And finally some girl came on there and just started lobbing F-bombs for no reason about all kinds of subjects. 

All of this happened in less that 24 hours. So, needless to say I gave up and just deleted the whole post. 

There was one bright note though, someone who works for the city did come on there and say the monument was removed for safety reasons, that the plaques that were on the monument will be saved and displayed eventually somewhere in the park, and that in September they were planning on having a 250 year anniversary celebrationg.

I was happy that person came on to clear things up but their comments were pretty much drowned out by the comments of the others bickering and cyber yelling at each other. 

And I happy to announce that Spanish Fork has officially set a date for the celebration, September 18th. 

Will I be able to go? I'm not sure, I work that day but will have to see what is going on at work to see if I can swing by or not. 

It would be fun to attend.