Feramorz Little’s Mules
His initial trip was a farcical epic. Fort Bridger, 124 miles distant, was the nearest speck of civilization east of Salt Lake City; beyond were 400 lonely miles to Fort Laramie. Years later,…
Rock Creek Hollow
We walk on down the Trail till we come to a plaque honoring a mass grave of eighteen Mormons. They were members of a handcart company who froze to death in a…
Stegner’s Stance on Mormonism
Since the stance from which I have written will surely strike some as being just as biased as anything in the library of Mormonism and anti-Mormonism, I may as well define…
Loss of Romance of the Trail
And partly what Burton saw along the trail reflected the change that had come in the trail itself. By 1860 much of the romance had gone out of an overland crossing, along…
First Mormon Mail Contract
The first government mail service between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City was supplied by Samuel Woodson, who 1850 took the contract for four years. But well before that there…
A Trail is Only a Set of Tracks
A trail is only a set of tracks, a road is a human institution. And it is a fact at first a little disconcerting to realize that what made the…
End of the Handcart Era
So the conclusion must be—and Mormon practise indicates that it was the conclusion of the hierarchy too—that handcarts were a perfectly feasible means of bringing the harvest to the valleys…
Brigham Young’s Kingdom
The "Kingdom" had once been projected from the crest of the Rockies to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and a number of anchor points had been settled: Fort Limhi…
Lot Smith and Simpson’s Hollow
Very shortly, but farther west on the trail, the Mormon captain Lot Smith met an unguarded supply train, confiscated all its freight, and turned it back toward Fort Laramie. That…
Reasons for Utah War
A book about the Mormon Trail had better not concern itself with the Utah War, but it cannot avoid mentioning it. Buchanan's posse comitatus was brought on by more than simple outrage…
Mormon Stations Along the Trail
But Brigham did not, as he had intended, send Jones back to manage the Y.X. Express station now established at Devil's Gate. He said he guessed Dan had had about enough of…
Food via Brigham Young’s YX Express
In the snow, which was from eighteen inches to three feet deep, hunting on foot was an exhausting grind, for they wallowed, were easily spotted by the game, and as…
Mail Rescue at Devil’s Gate
That afternoon a visitor dropped in; for a moment it looked as if he might be bringing the clean supper they aspired to. But he turned out to be an…
Mormon Handcart Casualties
Something more than two hundred of the Willie and Martin companies lay dead between Florence and the valley, sixty-two from the Willie company, and between 135 and 150 from Martin's, besides an unestimated…
Handcart Lumber
Ideally the lumber should have satisfied a wagonmaker's specifications: hickory for axles, elm for hubs, white oak for spokes and rims, ash for shafts and box, and all of it…