The Poppy Fields of Mantua, Utah, and the Family behind the Flowers

The small, northern Utah town of Mantua, 62 miles north of Salt Lake City, features poppy fields filled with gorgeous flowers. There are two distinct poppy fields in Mantua. The first location is at the corner of West 100 South and South Park Drive. This is the turn to go to the Box Elder Campgrounds. It is just a taste of what’s to come. The original field of poppies is a short drive after this turn, and it is much larger. From the corner of S. Park Dr. continue on to the bottom of the road. Then at the stop sign turn left and keep driving south through the campgrounds. Continue to drive past the campgrounds until you see a fork in the road. Turn right at the fork and drive until you see the poppies.

During springtime in northern Utah, some mountain fields bloom with brilliant, red poppies. The best time to see poppies is late May through early June. The floral displays are beautiful to see. In addition, there is an interesting historical story to the family responsible for the plantings, a narrative that reveals much about the rich heritage of the area.

The history of Mantua:

    Mantua is nestled within the slopes of the Wasatch mountain range. The small valley is just 4 miles east of Brigham City. In its early years, Mantua was known by different names: Little Valley; Flax Ville; Geneva; Hunsaker Valley; Little Copenhagen; and Box Elder Valley. It wasn’t until the spring of 1865 when Church leader President Lorenzo Snow and Jonathan C. Wright held a meeting on the top of the knoll just east of town. During the meeting, President Snow named the knoll Mt. Hope and dedicated the land and water so that it might be a blessing to the people of the town. The town was named Mantua in honor of Lorenzo Snow’s birthplace in Ohio (Forsgren, 285-86).

     Mantua started as a small settlement by Danish pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the spring of 1863, the Church asked twelve Danish families to be the first to settle in this small valley so they could raise flax. Due to the climate of this small valley and its similarities to Denmark, the church believed that the flax would flourish and would be used to provide clothing material for all the incoming immigrants. Unfortunately, the flax was not that successful for use as cloth because it was too coarse. However, that coarseness made a strong rope and sturdy gunny sacks, and the finer fibers of flax made a good thread.

The family behind the poppies:

     Interviews with descendants of the original Danish settlers, Randall Rasmussen, provided a great deal of background information about Mantua in general and the poppy fields in particular. Randy is the third great-grandson of Anne Kirstine Rasmussen. He and his wife, Lisa, provided family papers that correlated with other historical documentation I have found. Accounts of the events that follow are a collaboration of these interviews along with the Rasmussen family's personal records.  

     Randy traces his roots back to the family credited with bringing the poppies to Mantua. After reading the journal entries from Don Hans Rasmussen (grandson of Hans Rasmussen), Randy commented, “One thing I did learn, is that my great-grandfather’s mother, Anne, loved her home in Denmark and brought a little with her when she traveled to Zion. The field of flowers will always remind me of their sacrifice to get here.” There is a discrepancy, however, in the story of who brought the seeds and planted them. A report in the Cache Valley Daily featured an interview with another Mantua resident, Terry Nelson, who stated that “Danish immigrant Hans Rasmussen’s wife [rather than his mother] brought some seeds from Denmark and planted them.” (Boam, 2020)

     The Mantua poppies endured a long and hard journey just to be planted and admired by thousands. Their story starts with the marriage of Hans and Johanna (Nielsen) Rasmussen in a small Denmark city in May 1868. The two were wed just before beginning their trek to America, accompanied by Hans’s mother, Anne Kirstine Rasmussen. On June 11, 1868, they joined a Latter-day Saints immigrant company in Copenhagen. Their voyage to America was filled with disappointments and dangers.

     In Liverpool, England, the Rasmussens and fellow travelers encountered suspicion and prejudice from locals. The company was forced to separate and spend the night in different hotels, not all of which were very accommodating. In some cases, members were not treated with dignity as guests in the hotel. Some only had a place on the dirty floor to sleep. On June 20^th, their ship, the Emerald Isle, set sail for America (Saints by Sea, 2021). Hans’s first-class passage was not accepted by the crew, and the family was placed below deck in dreadful conditions. Days later, in Queenstown, Ireland, the ship took on freshwater. Tragically, the water had become stagnant resulting in many passengers getting ill. Thirty-seven died.

      The ship landed in New York on August 11th, 1868 where, after three days of quarantine, passengers continued their travel (Saints by Sea, 2021). The Rasmussens traveled upstate to Niagara Falls, and then to Detroit, Chicago, and Council Bluff, finally arriving in Fort Benton, Montana on August 25^th. They and the LDS company met up with other companies made up of British and Scandinavian families. On August 31^st, they departed for Salt Lake City. Traveling by mule team, the Rasmussens reached Salt Lake on September 25th, 1868. Officials of the LDS church asked Hans, his wife, and his mother, Anne Kirstine, to join other Scandinavian families in a small valley in northern Utah.

The poppy fields:

     Poppy seeds are used in many Danish recipes from pastries to dinner rolls and even to tea. But the medicinal qualities have probably also played an important role in the Danish culture (Sloth, Hansen, Karg, 2012; Larsson, 2020). Randy Rasmussen believes it was Anne’s poppy seeds that originated the lovely fields we see today. He has often spoken with his family to learn why Anne bought the seeds from Denmark. The family speculates is that Anne wanted to bring something to their new home from their old one.

     The Rasmussen family has resided in Mantua since 1868. The family’s homestead was west on the hill just above the area now known as Box Elder Campgrounds. The home was repurposed by the US Forest Service for a ranger station in the mid-1920s, with the stipulation that the land would always have free picnic sites (Box Elder News Journal, 1922). It was Anne who had the poppies planted in the main field where the home stood -- and where you will see them today. 

Boan, Rod. “The Poppy Field in Mantua is in Bloom.” Cache Valley Daily. June 16, 2020: https://www.cachevalleydaily.com/news/archive/2020/06/16/the-poppy-field-in-mantua-is-in-bloom/#.YN5qTehKg6Q

Forsgren, Lydia Walker. History of Box Elder County 1851-1937, p285-286, Published by (Daughters of Utah Pioneers), (Salt Lake City, UT), 1937.

Larsson, Anette. Scandinavian Simple Eating. March 29, 2020. https://scandinaviansimpleeating.com/

“Mantua Pioneer Called by Death.” Box Elder News Journal. January 3, 1922:                                                                                        https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=320144

Pernille Rohde Sloth, Ulla Lund Hansen & Sabine Karg. “Viking Age Garden Plants from Southern Scandinavia: Diversity, Taphonomy, and Cultural Aspects, Danish Journal of Archaeology, 1:1 (2012), 27-38, DOI: 10.1080/21662282.2012.750445           https://doi.org/10.1080/21662282.2012.750445

Rasmussen, Randall. Interview with author. April 2021.

Rasmussen, Lisa. Interview with author. April 2021.

Saints by Sea: Latter-day Saint Immigration to America. Brigham Young University: https://saintsbysea.lib.byu.edu/mii/voyage/129