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A big part of the holiday season along the Wasatch Front is the lights at Temple Square. The 10-acre block glows with the color throughout the Christmas season, and every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving we wait for them to come on. Today we dug up some history on the lights at Temple Square.
The annual display started in 1965. That year, about 15,000 people came to watch 40,000 lights decorate a meager eight trees. Now, hundreds of thousands of people walk the 10 acres to see the more than 700,000 lights.
The Temple Square lights are ranked as one of the country's top 100 holiday events by the American Bus Association. Crews start putting up the lights in October, and they stay on until the new year.
There are a number of events going on in Salt Lake City tonight: the lights at Temple Square, the lights at the Gateway and, of course, holiday shopping. The Utah Transit Authority is adding additional TRAX lines to handle the crowds.
