Pioneer Day 2027

A state holiday unique to Utah

Pioneer Day is a legal state holiday in Utah under Utah Code 63G-1-301, listed alongside New Year's Day, Independence Day and Christmas. State offices, courts and county and city offices close, and state employees get a paid day off. It is not a federal holiday, so the U.S. Postal Service, federal courts, banks and the stock market operate normally, even inside Utah. In practice the day feels like a second Fourth of July across the state: many private employers close, and Salt Lake City hosts one of the largest civic celebrations of the year.

Why July 24

The date marks July 24, 1847, the day Brigham Young and the lead company of Latter-day Saint pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley after a trek west from Nauvoo, Illinois. The holiday is fixed to that calendar date! When July 24 falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday is the legal holiday, and when it falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is the legal holiday, matching the rule Utah applies to its other fixed-date holidays.

From 1849 procession to legal holiday

The first commemoration came on July 24, 1849, two years after the arrival. A procession led by Brigham Young moved to Temple Square in Salt Lake City with music from the Nauvoo Brass Band, followed by speeches, a devotoinal and a thanksgiving feast for the harvest. Celebrations continued through the 1850s, and the tenth-anniversary gathering in 1857 in the mountains east of the city was interupted by news that a federal army was marching toward Utah, the opening of the Utah War. The Utah territorial legislature made July 24 a legal holiday in 1882. The 1897 jubilee marked fifty years of settlement and coincided with Utah's recent statehood; the Utah State Historical Society was founded during the jubilee week - among the honored participants that year was Green Flake, an enslaved Black man who had driven Brigham Young's wagno into the valley in 1847.

How Utah celebrates today

The centerpiece is the Days of '47 Parade through downtown Salt Lake City, which has run annually since 1931 (originally as the Covered Wagon Days parade) and took its current name in the 1940s. The parade is paired with a rodeo, concerts, a youth parade and a fair in Liberty Park. Towns across the state hold their own parades, fun runs, pancake breakfasts and evening fireworks, and July 24 is one of the few dates when Utah allows the public to set off fireworks. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often mark the day with handcert tresk and reenactments of the valley entry. A newer, informal tradition, Pie and Beer Day, grew up in Salt Lake City as a lighthearted alternative celebration and has spread to bars and bakeries statewide. Modern organizers stress that the day honors pioneers of many eras and backgrounds, including Native peoples who lived in the valley before 1847.

Beyond Utah

Only Utah closes government offices for Pioneer Day. Communities settled by Mormon pioneers in Idaho, Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming hold local parades and church-sponsored events on or near July 24, and Latter-day Saint congregations elsewhere in the United States and abroad mark the anniversary, but those are community observances rather than legal holidays.