"Nearly opposite the Post-office, in a block on the eastern side, with a long verandah, supported by trimmed and painted posts, was a two-storied, pent-roofed building, whose sign-board, swinging to a tall, gibbet-like flagstaff, dressed for the occasion, announced it to be the Salt Lake House, the principal if not the only establishment of the kind in New Zion."      Richard Burton 1860

"As the night closed in we took sanctuary in the Salt Lake House and unpacked our baggage. We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables--a great variety and as great abundance. We walked about the streets some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination in surreptiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon."
                                                        Mark Twain 1860