1900 Baptismal Site

On the dry west bench, water was salvation twice over. The same hand-dug canals that coaxed crops from alkaline ground also served the settlers' faith: around 1900, before there was an indoor font to spare them, Taylorsville's Latter-day Saint converts were baptized right in the irrigation water — a ditch doing double duty as farm lifeline and sacred pool. It says something about this country that the ditch that watered the wheat also washed the newly faithful. The canals are piped and buried now, but a marker keeps the spot where the water once did both.

What the plaque says

In the early 1900's, many Taylorsville residents were baptized in the North Jordan Canal near here. Sons of the Utah Pioneers, Taylorsville Bennion Chapter #153 Erected July 2010

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• International Peace Gardens — 3.9 mi
  A hidden garden where 28 countries are represented in miniature
• Liberty Park — 6.3 mi
  Salt Lake Citys beloved 80-acre urban park since 1882
• Gilgal Sculpture Garden — 6.4 mi
  A surreal and eccentric sculpture garden hidden in a residential neighborhood
• Temple Square — 7.7 mi
  The spiritual and architectural heart of Salt Lake City

More markers nearby

• Taylorsville/ Bennion Pioneers — steps away
• Taylorsville-Bennion Cemetery & Cemetery Flagpole — 0.5 mi
• English Fort — 0.5 mi
• Millrace — 0.8 mi