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Show late nineteenth century looked at the beehive and contemplated a common meaning which pertained not only to Mormons, but to all people who would live in the state. The aspect of the beehive which suited this vision best was "industry," a virtue praised by all building civilizations and one particularly apt in the industrial age. So the beehive was allowed to stay. It was incorporated into the state seal; significantly, it was diminished in size, dwarfed by the threatening outstretched eagle. Instead of the proud "Deseret" banner flying above, the word "Industry" appeared. Utah, Hive of Industry Twentieth-century Utah, though still predominantly Mormon, found itself with the eclectic population which had been drawn to the crossroads of the West. The new industrious state used its shared symbol in a variety of ways; the beehive is employed widely and has come to carry a number of meanings, religious and secular. In Salt Lake City one finds a lavish Victorian hotel with fine china, linen, and decorative moldings all displaying the beehive beneath the eagle's talon. Price, originally a tiny Mormon village, experienced an early mining boom which brought in masses of gentile (non-Mormon) miners. Very early the Saints of Price incorporated the beehive into the city seal, making a statement of Mormon power amidst the coal-blackened faces of the foreigners. [Brigham City, a community of strong-willed farming Scandinavians, held tightly to the Mormon communal plan (the United Order) long after other communities ceased adherence; the Box Elder High School Bees of Brigham City are just one organization which currently employs the bee and hive as mascot. In other parts of the state Mormon communities have resigned themselves to the irony of the fact that the beehive, emblem of Deseret, has become the official symbol for a state eventually named after a native tribe, the Utes, who happened to live within its boundaries. In the early days of statehood, an urbane and slightly stinging periodical called The Beehive came and went. Samuel Auerbach, a Jewish merchant on the gentile side of the Salt Lake shopping district, offered a line of "Beehive Brand" clothing in 1916. "Deseret," in contrast with the wide and varied use of the beehive, remains a predominantly Mormon word. The beehive as a religious, governmental, and commercial symbol has a long and varied history in Utah and is widely familiar to its citizens. From the variety of uses which we find it has been given, it seems clear that most craftsmen in early Utah were familiar with the motif and employed it in the course of their work with some regularity. Designers, stone carvers, wood turners, and sign painters all were prepared to craft versions of the skep shape, and thus we find the beehive a part of tombstones and gates, house eaves and leaded glass. Later, modern commerce extended its use to neon signs and letterheads, to souvenir honey pots and soda pop labels. The pithy social icon of the nineteenth century has shown itself to be an easily adaptable symbol |