EXHIBITS
Dinosaurs
Fossils
Prehistoric People
Native Americans
Mountain Men
Oregon-California
Trail
Mormon Trail
Pony Express
Cherokee &
Overland Trail
Stagecoaches
Union Pacific
Railroad
John Wesley Powell
Coal & Trona Mining
Oil & Gas Booms
Mormon War of
1857
Chinese
Massacre
U.S. Army in Wyoming
Outlaws & Lawmen
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
Big Nose George
Cattle Ranching
Sheep Herding
Riverboats
Lincoln Highway
Aviation
Amelia
Earhart
Women's History
Wyoming General Hospital
Nursing
Firemen
Rialto Theater
Home
Entertainment
Wild Horses
Offsite Exhibits
Chinese Dragon
Parade
MORMON TRAIL
Out of the 1820s religious revival movement, called the Great Awakening, sprang the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons. The church was founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith and quickly attracted thousands of converts. Non-Mormons, called “Gentiles” by the Saints, were hostile to Smith’s followers and persecuted them severely. The Mormons decided to move to Ohio to escape. Ohio proved to be no safer than New York, so the group moved again, to Illinois. There they built their temple at their new town called Nauvoo. In 1844, a mob killed the prophet-leader Joseph Smith prompting the Mormons to move further west. In 1846, they left their homes and set out in companies to the Salt Lake valley where they hoped they could live in peace. The trek was organized by Joseph Smith’s successor, the new leader of the church, Brigham Young.
Over 70,000 Mormons made the journey by wagon or by foot between the years 1846 and 1869. Many of the travelers were converts newly-arrived from Great Britain and northern Europe. Like the emigrants heading towards Oregon, the Mormons primarily used wagons drawn by oxen, mules, or horses. However, between 1856 and 1860, approximately 3,000 Mormons made their way to Utah pulling or pushing handcarts. One group was caught in a Wyoming blizzard and, before help could come from Salt Lake City, nearly 200 people died.
In less than ten years the Mormons were able to establish a thriving colony in Utah. They applied for statehood in 1849. The Saints‘ practice of polygamy (having more than one wife) and Young’s insistence that the state, to be named Deseret, the Mormon word for the industrious honey bee, include nearly all of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, some of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and southern California led to rejection of the application by the US government. Instead of becoming a state, Utah, Nevada, and half of Colorado, Arizona, and the southwest corner of Wyoming became Utah territory with Brigham Young as governor. The Mormons were not pleased with territorial status since they could not vote or be represented in Congress. Utah did not become a state until 1896.