There are a lot of logistics and concerns to maneuver around as the LDS Church holds its annual general conference this weekend in downtown Salt Lake City. There's the controversy over free speech rights on the Main Street Plaza, there's the threat of terrorism and there is the unsettling undertow of a war going on in Iraq.

But it's always something. The first LDS General Conference held in what was then called The City of the Salt Lake took place in October of 1848 — 155 years ago — and there were a few wrinkles to work out with that one as well.

Mormon settlers had been in the area for just 14 months in the fall of '48. There were 5,000 people and approximately the same number of oxen.

Anyway, the Latter-day Saints, who back then made up roughly 99 percent of the population (and you thought the percentage was high now), wanted to hold their first general conference in their new city, so they reserved the new meeting bowery beginning Friday, Oct. 6, and stretching through Sunday, Oct. 8.

The bowery was a 40-foot-by-28-foot covered area that conveniently stood in the middle of Pioneer Fort. And spell "conveniently" with a capital C because every soul in the city, saint or otherwise, lived inside the fort.

Pioneer Fort — necessitated by not-altogether-friendly relations with the native Ute and Shoshone Indians as well as an ongoing war with Mexico — took up an entire city block and was located three blocks south and two blocks west of the still undeveloped Temple Square. Today we know Pioneer Fort as Pioneer Park, the place of choice for Salt Lake City's street people. (And how's that for an ironic twist; the place that was once everyone's home is now the domain of the homeless?)

All went smoothly for the first conference until the last members of the Mormon Battalion — a U.S. Army outfit made up of Mormons who marched to San Diego and back — happened to arrive in The City of the Salt Lake just as conference was to begin.

Everyone was so happy to see the soldiers that Brigham Young, who was in charge of the meeting, called for an opening prayer, a song and a closing prayer — the world's shortest conference meeting — so they could all break for a celebration party and feast.

The celebration continued through Saturday the 7th, delaying the resumption of conference until Sunday the 8th.

Sounds like they may have had it more together back then than now, doesn't it?

When the meetings finally did resume on Sunday, though, they were historic and made up for the early brevity.

It was in the Oct. 8, 1848, session of general conference that Brigham Young was sustained as president of the LDS Church by the church members crowded into the bowery, ending a four-year vacuum at the top created after the death of LDS founder Joseph Smith.

Then, what started late ended even later.

Out of respect for two wagon trains yet to arrive from the East, one led by Willard Richards and another by Amasa M. Lyman, President Young stretched the conference throughout the remaining Sundays in October. More conference sessions were held on Oct. 15, 22 and 29, by which time Lyman's stragglers were finally safely inside the fort. If you ignore the weekday breaks for farming, the 1848 session of general conference was easily the longest conference in LDS Church history, and maybe any church history.

Juxtaposed alongside the present day, the conference that got it all started in Salt Lake 155 years ago seems oddly distant and close at the same time. Distant because the logistics were so different, close because, just like now, there were still things to deal with and work out.

Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.