Tooele’s Little Mountain Christmas tree stands as a beacon of community spirit

TOOELE — For nearly 50 years, a festive pop of color illuminates over the city of Tooele, serving as a beacon of the holiday season.

Each year after Thanksgiving, members of Tooele County Search and Rescue along with their families and others go up into the foothills, where they mount a bevy of lights on a flagpole in the form of a Christmas tree that many locals refer to as the Little Mountain Christmas Tree.

The gesture, as Joey Nix, 1st vice commander for Tooele County search and rescue, calls it, is a representation of service of those who cherish their community.

“It means quite a bit to the entire unit, you know, because it’s such a long-standing Tooele County tradition, and us being all volunteers for the county specifically, we really care about the community,” he said.

According to Nix, the Yuletide staple started in 1979, when Tooele residents Maxine Grimm and Paul Bevan had the idea to turn a 30-foot communication tower at the time into a holiday light display. The makeshift Christmas tree could be seen all across Tooele Valley, according to BonnevilleMariner.com.

Tooele search and rescue members took over the effort a couple of years later in the early 1980s and have hung the tree up on Little Mountain each Christmas holiday season since then.

Nix said the tree has gone through several iterations over the years — including switching from incandescent to LED lights, and with the financial help of local businesses, a 60-foot pole now sits on Little Mountain.

“So we redid the tree when we put the pole up, and it’s a much taller tree now; it’s a lot more LED lights all around,” he said.

Crews typically put the tree up on Little Mountain a few days after Thanksgiving, and it remains until just after New Year’s Day. The tree runs off of a timer, with lights being switched on about 5 p.m. that turn off 12 hours later.

Nix said the crew meets a few weeks prior to going up to the mountain to set the tree up to make sure all of the lights are working and check for any parts that may need to be ordered ahead of time. The tree is set up with four pulley systems, each covering a quadrant, and takes about an hour and a half to two hours to set up.

In all, Nix said 36 strands of holidays are mounted to the flagpole to resemble a Christmas Tree.

Residents of Tooele County and points beyond look forward to the illumination of lights from the hill each Christmas holiday season.

“There’s something incredibly comforting about that single, shining tree,” said Sarah Garcia, who operates the Tooele Adventures online accounts on multiple social media platforms.

“In a world that can feel dark and hard, its light welcomes us home. It’s a beautiful reminder of hope and community — a symbol that guides us back to Tooele.”

 

While the Little Mountain Christmas tree holds various significance for people in Tooele County, Nix shared his own personal story of how it led to him joining search and rescue.

“I worked for the company that managed the comms tower up on the mountain, and so I was a tower climber, and they needed help climbing the tower to put this tree up. And so I worked with the unit for a couple years and then started talking with these folks like, ‘Hey, this is something that I want to do,'” he recounted.

Garcia praised the Tooele County search and rescue for its work in keeping the tradition that was started by two residents wanting to spread holiday cheer going for more than four decades.

“​​It makes my heart sing to think that it began with two Tooele families, and that the tradition continues today through our search and rescue volunteers. That’s what makes this community special,” she told KSL.com.

In addition to the Christmas tree, the flagpole on Little Mountain is also utilized to commemorate Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Veterans Day.