Mormons settle the former location of Himmelsk
In 1851, six years after the destruction of Himmelsk, a company of Mormons under the leadership of Henry Lunt arrived at the site of the former kingdom. The settlers had been sent there by the church's president, Brigham Young, to build a community and iron works, the mountains west of the site being rich in iron ore.
To the hardy pioneers, there was nothing on the site to indicate that just six years earlier a small kingdom was located there, nothing except what appeared to be an abandoned lighthouse. Discounting that it was actually a lighthouse--after all, what would a lighthouse be doing on a western plateau so far from any ocean?--the settlers concluded that it had to have been built by one of the Paiute tribes that had made the area their home for upwards of 12,000 years. While most came to accept that theory, there were many who believed otherwise, insisting that the construction varied greatly from other Indian ruins found in southern Utah.
Cedar City: formerly Himmelsk
The pioneers named their new community Cedar City. An adobe wall half-a-mile square was constructed to house the town; irrigation ditches were built; a 500-acre field was cleared, seeded, and harvested; and work progressed on the construction of the first ironworks west of the Mississippi. While the ironworks eventually failed because of natural calamities, including floods, and the high sulfur content of the local coal supply, a small amount of iron was manufactured. Bolstered by the arrival of immigrants, many from England, Scotland, and Wales, Cedar City established itself as southern Utah's most admired and respected settlement. The community remained unaware that for 674 years a Norwegian kingdom had existed on the exact same site.
A community effort unmatched in the annals of the West produced a college which grew and developed over the years into today's respected Southern Utah University. Arts organizations emerged: an orchestra was organized, the Utah Shakespearean Festival grew from humble beginnings in 1962 to become one of America's most acclaimed (and Tony Award-winning) regional theaters, and the American Folk Ballet moved from California to Cedar City in 1982. The modern-day Cedar City is thus a thriving and renowned center for education and the arts.
In the century and-a-half since Cedar City's founding, its citizens, initially focused on iron mining, ultimately turned to other livelihoods. Some became ranchers and farmers, others took jobs in the community's robust manufacturing industries, some accepted government work. Given the city's location in the midst of four of America's most beautiful national parks, still others found employment in welcoming tourists to the area's scenic wonders.
The lighthouse: One of life's great mysteries
As the community grew over the years, many new theories of the lighthouse's origins emerged: It had been built by the Catholic fathers who had first explored the valley, some theorized. It had been constructed elsewhere and hauled to the site by early trappers, others guessed. Still others insisted it was placed there by aliens as a beacon for extraterrestrial landing craft.
In time, the residents of Cedar City came to accept the lighthouse as one of life's great mysteries, an American Stonehenge. Then, purely by accident, the truth of the lighthouse was revealed along with the surprising news that a Viking kingdom had once flourished on the site of the western town. The secret President Polk had taken such great pains to protect had, 156 years later, finally been exposed.
Himmelsk rediscovered
The date was April 1, 2002. Two children, part of a family outing in a canyon near Cedar City, stumbled upon a cave that had formerly been covered by an adobe-like wall. Curious to see what might be behind the wall, the children pulled down the remaining adobe. As they peered into the now illuminated cave, the juveniles seemed to see some kind of ax, but much more massive than the hatchets with which they were familiar.
As they pulled the object out of the cave, other bright items caught their attention. For more than an hour, the children pulled objects from the cave. Several more axes were recovered as well as a Viking helmet with horns, chest armor, two ornate chalices, three spears, a variety of farming implements, and a large wooden military-style trunk.
Unable to retrieve the trunk, which was too large and too heavy for them to lift, the children ran excitedly to their parents to tell them of the prizes they had recovered. After a quick examination of the objects assembled at the cave's opening, the parents realized their children had uncovered a cache of valuable artifacts. Leaving his family behind to protect the items, the father drove quickly to the city's police department to report the find. Soon the people of Cedar City were abuzz with the news of an historical discovery in Cedar Canyon.
Anthropologists in awe of discovery
Later that day, several men from the city's street department were able to carry the trunk out of the cave and into the waiting arms of two anthropologists from the local university who had scurried to the site as soon as they heard an announcement of the find over the local radio station. The trunk was then taken to a laboratory on the campus of Southern Utah University where its lid was pried open.
Inside the trunk were several papers, one of which carried a faded signature that appeared to be that of former President of the United States James Knox Polk. There was a series of almost unreadable journals belonging to one Private Zachary Cleveland, some crudely cast coins bearing the likeness of a Viking king, and several other papers including what appeared to be love letters sent to Pvt. Cleveland from a Miss Betsy Lohrengil of Fruit Heights, Ohio. Cleveland had presumably stolen the papers and artifacts and hidden them for when he might return to retrieve them. Unfortunately, army records show he was killed two years later when the horse he was riding carried him off a precipice to his death and the items and papers were never recouped.
Tests reveal the astounding truth
Since the inked writing proved almost impossible to read, city authorities were persuaded to send the documents to the prestigious Hofmann Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., where scientists exposed them to ultraviolet light. The amazed and delighted Hofmann researchers were thus able to eventually decipher the contents and the story of Himmelsk and its destruction, described in detail in Cleveland's journals, was unveiled. The document carrying President Polk's signature seemed to be an agreement between Polk and a king named Knut Blodok to purchase the land beneath Himmelsk for a sum of 100 times the property's value. There was even a provision that should the sum not be paid, the land would revert to its former owners. The swords and other metal items were sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where they too were authenticated as having been made sometime after 1000 A.D. (The trunk was retained in Cedar City and is today displayed in a special case in the Great Hall of Southern Utah University.)