Beginning in 1846, tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints left homes, friends, and families and endured the rigors of travel by ship, wagon, handcart, and train to gather with fellow Saints in the Rocky Mountains of North America. Wagons Various wagons were used but the predominant wagon for Mormons was the "Chicago" type, which was smaller, cheaper, and travelled better over rough terrain. About 500 men and several women and children volunteered to march from Iowa to the Pacific Ocean in what became known as the Mormon Battalion. Many of Nebraska’s highways today, including Interstate 80, are on or near routes used over one hundred years ago by explorers, fur traders, covered wagon pioneers, and many others. Deep mud and swollen streams slowed their progress. Trails are compared with nearby trails in the same city region with a possible 25 colour shades. The approximately 265-mile-long section from Nauvoo on the Mississippi across Iowa to present-day Council Bluffs on the Missouri. About 2,100 pioneers in 13 wagon companies journeyed to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In January 1847, Brigham Young received a revelation now included as section 136 in the Doctrine and Covenants. A three-step approach was used to do the study of the Mormon Trail. Although the carts were very inexpensive, pulling one was such backbreaking work that they stopped using them. Directions to mormon-trail-east trailhead (40.828100, -111.653630) update trails status or condition Mormon Trail (East) Trail Reports. That summer, the United States declared war on Mexico in hopes of adding California to its territory. Besides practical advice about organizing wagon companies for traveling, the Lord also urged His Apostles to rely on Him along their way. In Wyoming, however, with proper maps much of this old trail can still be found because the harsh terrain has held the ruts better and agriculture has obliterated little. In 1856, however, the Martin and Willie Companies left too late in the year and were trapped by the Wyoming winter. The Nebraska Mormon Trail Association is eyeing a historical trail site near Alda as a possible spot for a special marker. That infamous Donner Party actually blazed much of the Mormon Trail’s Utah portion a year before the first Mormons came through. Across the monotonous, undifferentiated, rolling central lowlands of Iowa, the Mormon Trail of 1846 generally followed primitive territorial roads as far as Bloomfield, Davis County, and then vague Pottawattamie Indian and trading trails along ridges from one water source to another, always within fifty miles of the present Missouri state line. In many ways the Mormons were very much like their contemporary Oregonians and Californians. As a result of improved organization and funding, the 1850s included the busiest years for the Mormon Trail. The trail became one of the great roadways to the west, used by Mormons, military expeditions, gold seekers and settlers. Each name identified with a death on the trail was then researched in the LDS Church’s Ancestral File for additional information. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, the first group of Mormons set out from Nauvoo, to an undetermined destination somewhere in the Great Basin. An exhibit in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, highlights their efforts of faith and commitment through objects they brought with them between 1846 … The Mormon Trail … Although the trail was not blazed by the Latter-day Saints, and parts of it have at times been known as the Council Bluffs Road, the Omaha Road, the Great Platte River Road, or even the North Branch of the Oregon Trail, the entire route is today almost universally known as "The Mormon Trail" because the Latter-day Saints used it for twenty-three years in such large numbers (at least seventy thousand; no one knows just how many), because of the high drama of their "Exodus," and because they developed separate strands or trails and wove them into their great road (see Immigration and Emigration). They largely followed the Platte River. The first portion of the overland trail led to Utah as well as Oregon and Montana. While the 1846-1847 trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City is by far the best-known part of the twenty-three-year-long Mormon overland migration, it is only part of the story. Today, the Lincoln Highway (Highway 30) follows this great roadway to the west. Learn about the Mormon Trail at the California Trail Interpretive Center. This part of the trail was used extensively from 1847 until completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Hundreds of Mormon pioneers were buried along the trail, most in unmarked graves. The trail was the major conduit for settlement of the American West until the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. At the Snake River, Wyeth built a post, Fort Hall, in Idaho (near present-day Pocatello), which was later bought by … By the end of this September, the first 12 of an eventual 24 National Park Service monuments will mark important trail sites in Iowa. Throughout the 19th century, hunters and trappers traversed the trails and rivers. The approximately 1,300-mile-long trail from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, Utah, was certified by the National Trails Act of 1986 as a National Historic Trail-officially The Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. After 1847, Kanesville (present-day Council Bluffs) became the local headquarters for almost 90 Mormon settlements in the area. The famous Oregon, Mormon, and California trails all passed through the Platte River Valley. This part of the trail was used relatively little: mainly by Latter-day Saints fleeing Illinois in 1846, by some immigrants "jumping off" from Keokuk, Iowa, in 1853, and in 1856-1857 by seven handcart companies from Iowa City who entered the Mormon Trail at present-day Lewis, Cass County, Iowa. Latter-day Saint volunteers in the Mormon Battalion sent their army pay back to Winter Quarters to help their families. The pioneers mostly traveled the Mormon trail by foot as they pushed handcarts or drove wagons pulled by a team of oxen to carry their meager possessions. The Mormons traversing this trail route generally used wagons as a means to transport their essential goods and other needs. These 2,500 Latter-day Saints journeyed 300 miles across Iowa Territory. Mobs forced them out of the city in September 1846. Many years have passed since the advent of the Mormon Trail. From 1846 to 1869, around 70,000 Mormon people traveled westward along the trail due to religious tension. Mormons on their trek from Illinois to … The Latter-day Saints did very little trail-blazing. The Pacific islands, Australia, and New Zealand were the homelands of hundreds of Saints by 1890. A half-million people moved out West using the dusty corridor. Most arrived in September or early October. The Mormon … The bulk of the battalion soldiers mustered out at Fort Moore in Los Angeles, California, in July 1847. More than 200 perished before a rescue party arrived. The Trail in California. From the Missouri River, Mormon companies followed the broad, flat valleys of the Loupe and Platte rivers for some six hundred miles to present-day Casper, Wyoming, then the Sweetwater River for about ninety-three miles to South Pass, thence along branches of the Sandy River and Blacks Fork to Fort Bridger, finally zigzagging through a series of canyons into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. This company of 143 men, 3 women, and 2 children kept careful records that benefited all who followed. As in Iowa, variants evolved, but all LDS immigrants used all or parts of this trans-Missouri trail. Oregon Trail - Oregon Trail - Missionaries, Mormons, and others: The first missionary group to the West left Independence in 1834. The Mormons followed existing trails and used maps and accounts from previous explorers to plan their route west. The Mormon Battalion crossed the Colorado River into what is now California on January 9 and 10, 1847, near Yuma. Topographically, the trail led across the central lowlands and high plains of eastern and central Nebraska, then the upland trough of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, through the Wyoming basin and the middle Rocky Mountains, and into the desert valleys of the Great Basin. Led by Jason Lee, its members joined a party headed by New England merchant Nathaniel Wyeth. Strengthened by this revelation, Brigham Young’s vanguard company set out in April and arrived at the Great Salt Lake Valley in July. Chad M. Orton “‘This Shall Be Our Covenant’: D&C 136,” Revelations in Context series, Feb. 25, 2015, history.lds.org, Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. Explore the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail across five states to see the 1,300-mile route traveled by Mormons who fled Nauvoo, Illinois, to … When that happened, they made their way across Iowa to a place near present day Council Bluffs. Beginning in 1846, tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints left homes, friends, and families and endured the rigors of travel by ship, wagon, handcart, and train to gather with fellow Saints in the Rocky Mountains of North America. Furthermore, with the Union Pacific Railroad moving west from Omaha beginning in 1865, during 1867-1868 Latter-day Saints took trains from Omaha to four different railheads (North Platte, Nebraska; Julesburg, Colorado; and Laramie and Benton, Wyoming), from which they eventually picked up the Mormon Trail. The Mormon Trail was used for twenty-three years, from 1846 to 1869. After 1860, Church-sponsored down-and-back wagon trains replaced handcarts as an inexpensive way for impoverished Saints to reach Zion. Cooks are using conventional ovens rather than Dutch ovens, are cooking indoors rather than exposed to the elements and are using modern-day refrigeration rather than cellars. West of the Missouri River the Saints passed along river valleys, across grasslands, plains, steppes, deserts, and mountains, and through western forests. When available, this information was used to get a full name, sex, age, death date, place of death, sources of the information in the Ancestral File, and additional notes. As they traveled east, they passed westbound wagons that had left Winter Quarters in June. Pony Express riders, freighters, soldiers and stage coach drivers also used the same well-worn Wyoming paths linking East and West. They arrived at the Missouri River in May, too late to continue farther west. Respect for life and death 10. An exhibit in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, highlights their efforts of faith and commitment through objects they brought with them between 1846 and 1890. Winter Quarters was the principal settlement for Latter-day Saints who gathered along the Missouri River in 1846. Beginning in 1852, many European Saints emigrated using contributions to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund—a revolving loan system that subsidized travel costs. This story focuses on the southern route of the Pioneer Trail, which is also called the Brigham Young Trail. When they encountered the Imperial Sand Dunes, the men marched south into Mexico, then back north and west, crossing desert and the mountains in Anzo-Borrego Desert State Park. 2. They established a gathering camp across the river called the Winter Quarters. Between 1848 and 1868, LDS immigrants traveling west from the Missouri River developed or utilized at least a dozen other points of departure and followed many other trails, such as the Oxbow Trail (1849-1864), the Mormon Grove Trail (1855-1856), and the Nebraska City Cutoff (1864-1866). The Brooklyn carried 239 Latter-day Saints and supplies for anticipated Mormon settlements in the West. This part of the trail was used extensively from 1847 until completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Into the Wilderness, 1846. In one way or another, however, all these trails eventually intersected the Mormon Trail. They followed territorial roads and Indian trails across Iowa; various segments of the Oregon Trail from the Missouri River to Fort Bridger in present western Wyoming; and the year-old trail of the ill-fated California-bound Reed-Donner party from Fort Bridger into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon Trail was a 1,300 mile path from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City Utah, used between 1846 and 1857 by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). The Mormon Trail is 1,032 miles from Winter Quarters (near Florence Nebraska) to Salt Lake City, Utah. The sailing ship Brooklyn left New York Harbor in February 1846, bound for California under the leadership of Samuel Brannan. As in Iowa, variants evolved, but all LDS immigrants used all or parts of this trans-Missouri trail. (nps brochure of the Mormon Trail) The jumping off point for heading to the valley of the Great Salt Lake moved from Winter Quarter's (Florence) to Wyoming, Nebraska from 1864 to 1867. 6. Today the Mormon Trail is a part of the U.S. National Trails System, called the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. “Casper was a significant point on the Mormon Trail for two reasons …” 1. Thousands of other Latter-day Saints crossed Iowa on variants of the 1846 route or on other trails, but all these intersected the trail of 1846 somewhere in western Iowa. The approximately 1,032-mile-long trans-Missouri River segment from present North Omaha (one-time winter quarters) and Florence, Nebraska, across Nebraska and Wyoming, into Utah. General Albert Sidney Johnston also used this trail during 1857-58 for dispatching various detachments and the supplies for over 5,000 soldiers with which he had been ordered to subjugate the Mormons, who had defied the authority of the National Government. Like the approximately 55,000 British and 25,000 Scandinavian converts, many Pacific Saints traveled by sail, trail, and rail across ocean, mountain, and desert to reach Zion. Trail Preservation and Marking In 1930, the historic value of the trail was officially recognized. The journey called for strength and courage, as well as faith. 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