At the west end of Parley Street, where it meets the Mississippi River, stands an historical marker, relating the experiences of the citizens of Nauvoo, who were forced out of their homes, in the dead of winter in 1846. The marker reads:
The Road to Zion
From the late 1840s through the 1860s, an exodus of more than 70,000 Mormons passed by here on their way to their "New Zion" in Utah. Starting from Nauvoo, Illinois in February 1846, the first group of at least 13,000 Mormons crossed into Iowa to escape religious persecution, then spent the next winter in the area of present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1847, Brigham Young led an advance party of 143 men, 2 women, and 3 children along the Platte River. At Fort Bridger, Wyoming they departed from the Oregon Trail to head southwest to the Great Salt Lake. Thousands of other Mormons soon followed. Today, a marked 1,624-mile auto tour route closely parallels their historic trek.
Many Mormon emigrants wrote diaries to describe their experiences. Appleton Harmon wrote his journal in 1847.
After arriving, the Mormon pioneers set up communities and ferry crossings along the trail to assist later wagon trains going to and from Utah.
From 1856-60, many European converts walked more than 1,200 miles to Salt Lake City pulling handcarts loaded with 500 pounds of supplies. Afer 1860, the Mormon church sponsored oxen-drawn wagons to bring emigrants to the "New Zion".
"The trail from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake Valley was approximately 1,300 miles long and would ultimately lead 70,000 pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the West. Take the journey with them. Stop along the trail and read their own accounts of what happened.
"In all of United States history, few people have suffered for their religious convictions as did the early Latter-day Saints. Because of the rapid growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and what many contemporary religionists viewed as the heretical doctrine of living prophets and modern revelation, many outsiders viewed Latter-day Saints with suspicion and contempt. During the first two decades of the Church's existence, Latter-day Saints repeatedly experienced the cycle of migration, settlement (including purchasing the lands they settled in), and expulsion. Within the span of 17 years, the fast-growing body of Latter-day Saints moved en masse from the Finger Lakes region of western New York state (1830-1831), to Kirtland, Ohio (1831-1838), Jackson County, Missouri (1831-1839) and Commerce/Nauvoo, Illinois (1839-1848), where their prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered by a mob. In the dead of winter 1846, the Latter-day Saints once again abandoned their homes and began the long, hard trek to the Rocky Mountains, where they would at last find welcome refuge." (
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