We made our leisurely way along the western shore of Bear Lake, the blue sky overhead reflected in the calm water on our right. To the left, it looked as if Mother Nature had spilled buckets of bright yellow and red color across the eastern slopes of the fair mountains we had just descended.

In time, we crossed the border from Utah into Idaho. But we did not leave all of the history of Deseret behind us, for history, in the guise of the Mormons, had crossed into Idaho long before us. In the little town of Paris, which boasts perhaps 500 residents, we found oursevles admiring the impressive Romanesque architecture which forms the exterior of the grand Mormon tabernacle.

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the tabernacle is a monument to the pioneering spirit of the Old West. Constructed of red sandstone, brought by wagon (or sled in winter) from a quarry eighteen miles away, the ediface was consecrated by the Mormons in 1889.

We were unable to visit the interior of the building, but a tour would reputedly reveal a series of intricate wood ceilings and stone carvings.

I walked to the far end of the building, and spied a monument to one Charles Coulson Rich, who, in 1863, colonized much of Bear Valley on behalf of the Mormons. Coulson was also one of the founders of San Bernardino, California. His labors on behalf of the Mormons in Bear Valley were not easy. He had to help Mormon farmers deal with severe winters and poor harvests, and as a Mormon elder, he was instrumental in creating peaceful relations with the American Indians in the area. At his death in 1883, at the age of seventy-five, he was also known for his prodigious production of offspring (with the help of his many wives): Coulson was the father of fifty-one children and the grandfather of eighty-five.