In Salt Lake's early years, Main Street, at least a part of it, catered to a crowd that doesn't necessarily fit the image of religious fervor and city-building diligence associated with the Beehive State's beginnings. Before it was officially named Main Street in 1906 Brigham Young designated the city's principal thoroughfare "Whiskey Street." This appellation stemmed from the conspicuous saloons operating along the south end of the thoroughfare. In an 1855 council meeting to discuss an ordinance declaring distilleries, breweries, and saloons a nuisance, a Councilman Richards suggested "there was enough to disturb and annoy the peace of society last season, when grog shops and beer shops were everywhere open to the public."i Though the city was constantly buzzing with the industrious hum of the Mormon faithful, there were others among them who often sought a different kind of buzz in the city. Alongside the busy bees working to establish a new Zion in the Salt Lake Valley were the troops who had arrived in 1857 under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston's command, and prospectors who'd heard about silver being found in nearby Park City.

The thirsty gentiles had options. They could've wet their whistles at Alt's or around the corner at the Stewart and Osborne Saloon. They could've drowned their gentile sorrows with a round and a game of pool at Leon Goulet's. Just down the street the Baer Brothers brewed and barreled their whiskies. The accounts of the city liquor store, near 200 South and Main Street, even suggest that church dignitaries, including Brigham Young himself, often acquired spirits on Whiskey Street. Between 1862 and 1872 there are 235 charges for liquor on the books between the liquor store and Young.ii

Such an account suggests that the ostensible cultural divide of Main Street – Temple Square and the ZCMI department store established by Brigham Young on the north end where Mormons congregated, and the saloons, billiard halls and breweries just south where the gentiles passed their time – wasn't so clearly delineated among Salt Lake's inhabitants. The buzzing bees working for Young and his church and the buzzed others all reaped the benefits of Whiskey Street. Brigham Young even addressed the city council on the liquor issue on August 11, 1865, saying, "This community needs vinegar and will require spirituous liquors for washing and for health, and it will be right and proper for the city to continue its sale, as it has done and make a profit."iii A true prophet, Young could see a future in not only tolerating the flow of liquor in his city, but in actively participating in the economy of its flow. Perhaps he recognized that for Salt Lake citizens – prophet or prospector, gentile or Mormon – Whiskey Street could quench a common thirst.

Sources:

http://www.highwest.com/our-story/utahs-distilling-history/

http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/theoldestprofessionssordidpastinutah.html

The Oldest Profession's Sordid Past in Utah, Hal Schindler, slctrib

State grants whiskey permit: Small distiller wants to break into business of high-end spirits by Dawn House, The Salt Lake Tribune, Published August 26, 2005; http://archive.sltrib.com/printfriendly.php?id=2974543&itype=NGPSID

http://www.saltlakeneighborhoods.com/downtown.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Salt_Lake_City

High West Distillery brings the Wild West back to Utah by Scott Evans, Catalyst Magazine http://www.catalystmagazine.net/blogs/item/626-adult-beverages-utah-whiskey#.UbZrjbcum04.email

http://archive.org/details/americanhistor_d19082publ
Author: Publishing Society of New York; Americana Society
Volume: yr.1908, pt.2
Publisher: New York : The Publishing Society of New York
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: 31833017536613
Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive
Book contributor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Collection: allen_county; americana
Notes: Photocopied book. No title page. Text and images are severely skewed and faded
and may not be legible.
Scanfactors: 18

http://archive.org/details/americanhistor_d19082publ
Author: Publishing Society of New York; Americana Society
Volume: yr.1908, pt.2
Publisher: New York : The Publishing Society of New York
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: 31833017536613
Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive
Book contributor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Collection: allen_county; americana
Notes: Photocopied book. No title page. Text and images are severely skewed and faded and may not
be legible.
Scanfactors: 18
ii ibid.
iii ibid.