Crossroads of the West
The state’s southern red rock country serves as a cinematic backdrop for movies about 19th century cattle drives, crime and justice, and cultural conflicts that play out in California, Wyoming,…
Mile 937: Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek
Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek was a Pony Express and stagecoach stop. This is also where the Martin handcart company, struggling west through early blizzards, first met rescue wagons from Salt Lake City.
Mile 939: Clayton’s Slough
West of Rock Avenue on the Oregon Trail in what’s now central Wyoming, emigrants came to an odorous, swampy place where their livestock often got stuck in the mud and…
Mile 890: BYX and Other Historical Facts
MORMAN SETTLEMENT: Anxious to obtain better mail service from the States, Hyrum Kimball, acting as agent for the Mormon BYX operation headquarters at Salt Lake City, was low bidder for…
First Mileposts on the Emigrant Trail
"They arrived in time and were turned over to Parley's brother, the Apostle Orson Pratt. Orson was the best educated of the Saints and one of the principal intelligences, a…
Brigham Young and Zion
Brigham Young was a realist. Texas was out of the question; it was square in the path of empire, and if the Saints could not survive among Illini and Missourians,…
Joseph Smith
"But it must not be forgotten that, during the last two years of his life, Joseph's paranoia had increased. He had always been drunk on glory, now he was drunk…
Alexander Doniphan
"One of [Boggs's] militia commanders in 1838 was Alexander Doniphan. He was a famous jury lawyer, probably the best in all Missouri, and it followed naturally that he commanded six…
Governor Lillburn Boggs
"A note on Missouri, to introduce two persons of our drama. It was Lillburn W. Boggs who, as governor of the state, had loosed six thousand militia on the Mormons…
Mile 1113: Big Sandy Station
"It was here [Big Sandy Station, Farson, WY], in 1847, that mountain man Jim Bridger gave Brigham Young advice on leading the first Mormon trains into Salt Lake. In the…
Valley Tan
"Tannery was the first technological process introduced into the Mormon Valley: hence all home industry has obtained the sobriquet of 'Valley Tan.'"
Indian Botheration
"But sagely thus reflecting that 'dangers which loom large from afar generally lose size as one draws near;' that rumors of wars might have arisen, as they are wont to do, from…
Mormon Assassins
"'Mormon' had in fact become a word of fear; the Gentiles looked upon the Latter-Day Saints much as our crusading ancestors regarded the 'Hashshashiyun,' [Hashshashin, Order of Assassins]whose name, indeed, was almost enough…
Higher Than Haman
"And if ever another man gives a whistle to a child of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him higher than Haman!" [Haman (also known as Haman…
Assoil
"By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt (whom God assoil!) there was never anything on this earth like it !" [assoil (archaic): absolve, pardon]