The National Park Service Geographic Resources Program hosts an interactive trails map viewer. Mormon Trail map. Furthermore, few people carried adequate provisions for the trip. It was apparent that the Latter-day Saints could not make it to the Great Basin that season and would have to winter on the Missouri River. From Las Vegas the road usually crossed the mountains down into San Bernardino, California and then west to Los Angeles. Nearly 40 years ago, Frank had the idea to produce a beautiful color map of the Mormon Trail from Nauvoo, Illinois to present-day Salt Lake City, Utah. An American Exodus. https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/mormon-loop-to-national-trail-loop Mormon Trail, in U.S. history, the route taken by Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake in what would become the state of Utah.After Mormon leader Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in 1844, church members realized that their settlement at Nauvoo was becoming increasingly untenable.Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, proposed a 1,300-mile (2,100-km) exodus to the west. Today the Mormon Trail is a part of the U.S. National Trails System, called the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail… Contents. Into the Wilderness, 1846 Routes through California, 1846–1848 Route to the Great Salt Lake, 1847 The Trail in the 1850s From Wagon Roads to Railroads The Mormon Trail extends from Nauvoo, Illinois, which was the principal settlement of the Latter Day Saints from 1839 to 1846, to Salt Lake City, Utah, which was settled by Brigham Young and his followers beginning in 1847. However, the actual trip across Iowa was slowed by rain, mud, swollen rivers, and poor preparation, and it required 16 weeks – nearly three times longer than planned. He would later be sustained as President of the Church and prophet. Mormon Trail Map. The company consisted of 143 men, including three black people and eight members of the Quorum of the Twelve, three women, and two children. The Saints traveled the trail broken by the vanguard company, splitting the journey into two sections. The small boxes affixed to the carts were three to four feet (91 to 122 cm) long and eight inches (20 cm) high. Santa Fe, NM Settlers along the trail. Login to . Mormon Trail Get onto the trail from U-276 about 15 miles southeast of Halls Crossing. The Mormons, due to persecution and suffering, left Nauvoo in 1847. This included the actions of Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs, who issued Missouri Executive Order 44, which called for the "extermination" of all Mormons in Missouri. GIS Interactive Map. Farming the uncultivated land was initially difficult, as the shares broke when they tried to plow the dry ground. A group of over 15,000 Mormons traveled west from Nauvoo, Illinois in hopes of ending up at the Great Basin beyond the Rocky Mountains. https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/mormon-pioneer-trail In their new settlement, entertainment was also important, and the first public building was a theater. Finally, with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, future emigrants were able to travel by rail, and the era of the Mormon pioneer trail came to an end.[18]. The sites are categorized by their location in respect to modern-day US states. The Mormon Trail State Historical Marker is a park in Iowa and has an elevation of 1093 feet. The departure from Nauvoo began on February 4, 1846, under the leadership of Brigham Young. [16], All but two of the handcart companies successfully completed the rugged journey, with relatively few problems and only a few deaths. The company pushed on through South Pass, rafted across the Green River, and arrived at Fort Bridger on July 7. They were seen as a faster, easier, and cheaper way to bring European converts to Salt Lake City. Mormon Trails. The initial party reached the Missouri River on June 14. Pioneer Pathways to Zion, 1846–1890. [5] To try to meet this deadline and to get an early start on the trek to the Great Basin, the Latter-day Saints began leaving Nauvoo in February 1846.[6]. In the spring of 1847, Young led the vanguard company to the Salt Lake Valley, which was then outside the boundaries of the United States and later became Utah. The weather, general unpreparedness, and lack of experience in moving such a large group of people all contributed to the difficulties they endured. A modern map of the Mormon Trail is compared to a commemorative map from 1899 called "Route of the Mormon Pioneers from Nauvoo to Great Salt Lake." He insisted the Mormons should settle in a place no one else wanted and felt the isolated Great Basin would provide the Saints with many advantages.[4]. After leaving, they aimed to establish a new home for the church in the Great Basin and crossed Iowa. [2][10], Young met mountain man Jim Bridger on June 28. The exact route of the Mormon Trail to Southern Califo… 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. National Trails About the same time, they were joined by 12 more members of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion. Therefore, the LDS Church established a revolving fund, known as the Perpetual Emigration Fund, to enable the poor to emigrate. This activity provides an interactive map of the Mormon Trail. PO Box 728 During the first few years, the emigrants were mostly former occupants of Nauvoo who were following Young to Utah. After 1860, the church began sending wagon companies east each spring, to return to Utah in the summer with the emigrating Latter-day Saints. “In a way, we almost became adopted by that group of pioneers, or we adopted them. See more ideas about mormon trail, mormon, trail. He launched his website at pioneermaps.com and began offering maps for sale. We approached from U-95. Under the leadership of Joseph Smith, Latter Day Saints established several communities throughout the United States between 1830 and 1844, most notably in Kirtland, Ohio; Independence, Missouri; and Nauvoo, Illinois. At pioneermaps.com and began offering maps for following the Oregon Trail toward the trading post at Fort Bridger was theater! The Rocky mountains today, the emigrants increasingly included converts from the British Isles and Europe generally... 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