The Mormon Trail or the Mormon Pioneer Trail is the
1,300 mile route that members of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints traveled from 1846 to 1868. Today the
Mormon Trail is a part of the U.S. National Trails System,
called the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
The Mormon Trail starts from Nauvoo, Illinois, which was
the major settlement of the Latter Day Saints from about
1839 to 1846, to Utah's Salt Lake City, which was settled
by their leader Brigham Young and his followers beginning
in 1847. From Council Bluffs, Iowa to Fort Bridger in the
state of Wyoming, the Mormon trail follows much the same
route(s) as the Oregon Trail and the California Trail;
these two trails are collectively known as the Emigrant
Trail.
The Mormon pioneer movement began in 1846 when, in the face
of angry conflicts with neighbors, Brigham Young decided to
leave and abandon Nauvoo and to re-establish a new home for
the church in the Great Basin area. That year Young's
followers crossed the state of Iowa. Along the way, some
were assigned to establish smaller node settlements and to
plant and harvest crops for later emigrants following.
During the winter of 1846–47, the emigrants wintered in
Iowa, and other nearby states, and the unorganized state
territory that later became Nebraska, with the largest
group staying in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. In the spring
of 1847, Young led the followers to the Salt Lake Valley,
which was then outside the boundaries of the United States
and later became the state of Utah. During the first few
years, the emigrants were mostly former occupants of the
settlement of Nauvoo who were following Young's path to
Utah. Later, the emigrants increasingly comprised of
converts from the British Isles and Europe.
The trail was used heavily for more than 20 years, until
the final completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad
in 1869. Among the emigrants were the walking Mormon
handcart pioneers of 1856–1860. Two of the handcart
companies, led by James Willie and Edward Martin, met
disaster on the trail when they departed late and were
caught by very heavy snowstorms in Wyoming.