Mormon Trail
Saints' western path
The Mormon Trail was the route traveled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah during the 1840s and 1850s.
Covering roughly 1,300 miles, it became one of the principal overland routes for westward migration, paralleling parts of the Oregon Trail.
Thousands of pioneers crossed the plains along the Mormon Trail.
Early Latter-day Saints president
- Joseph SmithLDS church originator
- Salt Lake CityUtah's capital metropolis
- Latter-day SaintsLDS church adherents
- exodusMass departure from somewhere
Great Basin · Zion · religious persecution · converts · missionaries · proselytizing · revelation · prophet
Manual two-wheeled vehicle
- wagon trainPioneers' covered convoy
- trekArduous overland journey
- emigrationLeaving homeland permanently
- overlandVia land routes
prairie schooner · crossing · ox team · provisions · encampment · Chimney Rock · waystation · ferry crossing
Obvious, inescapable fate
- westward migrationPopulation shift toward sunset
- frontierEdge of settlement
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
- Rocky MountainsWestern North American cordillera
homesteading · land claims · colonization · transcontinental · overland routes · frontier life · wilderness · Indian Territory
Brigham Young
Early Latter-day Saints president
- Joseph SmithLDS church originator
- Salt Lake CityUtah's capital metropolis
- Latter-day SaintsLDS church adherents
exodus · Great Basin · Zion · religious persecution · converts · missionaries · proselytizing · revelation · prophet · 1847
handcart
Manual two-wheeled vehicle
- wagon trainPioneers' covered convoy
- trekArduous overland journey
- emigrationLeaving homeland permanently
overland · prairie schooner · crossing · ox team · provisions · encampment · Chimney Rock · waystation · ferry crossing · pioneers
manifest destiny
Obvious, inescapable fate
- westward migrationPopulation shift toward sunset
- frontierEdge of settlement
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
Rocky Mountains · homesteading · land claims · colonization · transcontinental · overland routes · frontier life · wilderness · Indian Territory
- Westward ExpansionLewis and Clark, covered wagons, pioneers, frontier, wagon trains
- Frontier Transportcovered wagon, stagecoach, prairie schooner, Conestoga wagon, wagon train
- Rocky Mountain WestWyoming, Montana, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, cowboys
- MormonismJoseph Smith, Latter-day Saints, priesthood, Latter-day Saint, prophets
- frontier historypioneers, settlers, homesteaders, frontier tales, westward expansion
- frontier trailsCumberland Gap, mountain passes
Mormon TrailTrail of Tears
1830s forced indigenous relocation
Oregon Trail · Middle Passage · Underground Railroad · Santa Fe Trail · Chisholm Trail