The Y on the Mountain
Near Provo, Utah
Up on the slope above Provo, roughly two miles east of the BYU campus, a white letter stands three hundred eighty feet tall. From certain vantage points in the valley you can see it from twenty miles away. But in nineteen oh-six, it almost did not happen at all, and the reason it did involves a class conflict between high school students.
That year, the junior class of Brigham Young High School wanted to paint their graduation year on the mountain. The senior class objected. The dispute reached BYU President George Brimhall, who proposed a compromise: instead of class years, they would put up the letters BYU.
Professor Ernest Partridge surveyed the slope and designed the letters. Students and faculty formed a bucket brigade and hauled lime, sand, and rock up the mountain by hand. After six hours of labor, they had completed only the Y.
The B and the U were left for another day that never quite came. The Y stayed. Later classes reinforced it with concrete, added a three-foot rim, and cut in the serif blocks that give it the form it holds today.
For decades students made the Y Day hike every fall to whitewash the letter fresh. The tradition ended in nineteen seventy-three after geologists determined that thousands of feet shuffling up the slope were eroding the mountainside faster than any other force. The Y was already a landmark.
They decided to let the mountain rest.
