Old Sorrel Trail

Old Sorrel Trail. . , Old Main , This monument is dedicated to the selfless sacrifice and hard work of the 1898 citizens of Cedar City. The story of the construction of this unique building is told at the Old Sorrel Monument next to the Centrum. The thirty-five loggers, sawyers, and haulers are rightly memorialized for their heroic effort to bring lumber to this site from the Jensen Sawmill in the winter months of January, February, and March, but the success of the enterprise would not have been possible without the devoted and unselfish service and hard work of the 1500 citizens of Cedar City. The women and young ladies at home baked and made butter and cheese to keep the mill workers supplied with food, and they darned wool clothing to keep their feet and hands warm for their winter ordeal on the mountain. The men in town gathered hay and grain, donated horses, wagons and other equipment, and worked on the building to make the project succeed. The young boys in Cedar City, gathered firewood and coal to fire the bricks used in this structure, and they did the chores on their family farms so that their fathers could work on the building. This structure would not have been possible without the entire sacrifice of the community. Old Main is a memorial to a people that understood the significance of education and the university slogan. "Learning Lives Forever. The building was renovated in 1975. , Background , One of the first acts of the Utah Legislature of 1897 was to provide for a teachers training or "normal" school in southern Utah. In March 1897, the legislature selected Cedar City as the site for the new school. Since there was no school building in the fall of 1897, classes for the new Branch Normal School were held in the Cedar City Ward hall during the 1897-98 school year. At Christmas time in 1897, the legislature informed the city that they had to have a school building by the fall of 1898 or lose the school. With virtually no timber resources in the local area. Cedar City residents were forced to organize a winter lumbering expedition to build that structure, now "Old Main" on the campus of Southern Utah University. This marker is one of eight along the 1898 route which tell the story of this remarkable expedition., CENTENNIAL , Boy Scouts of America , Erected 1996 Boy Scouts of America Cedar Breaks District , Sponsor - Southern Utah University ,