Donner Trail 1846

The Donner Party crossed the Jordan River near here in early September 1846, eighty-one people, a third of them children. The delay that killed them started in these mountains: two weeks spent hacking a wagon road down Emigration Canyon, the same canyon the Mormons would roll through a year later. Behind schedule, they bogged down crossing the salt desert and reached the Sierra Nevada as the snow closed in. Thirty-six never came out. A 1931 monument marks the crossing, now surrounded by the ordinary streets of west Salt Lake City.

What the plaque says

The Donner Party led by George and Jacob Donner and James F. Reed passed here and crossed Jordan River nearby about September 2, 1846. This party, consisting of 81 persons, 35 of them children, was delayed 2 weeks building a road via emigration canyon. Lost some wagons and many animals crossing Great Salt Lake desert and became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains where 36 of them perished that winter.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Square — 1.5 mi
  The spiritual and architectural heart of Salt Lake City
• Salt Lake City — 1.5 mi
  Utah's capital and largest city — where the Wasatch Range meets the Great Salt Lake.
• Ensign Peak — 2.2 mi
  A short hike to the spot where Brigham Young surveyed the valley
• Liberty Park — 3.0 mi
  Salt Lake Citys beloved 80-acre urban park since 1882

More markers nearby

• Horticulture Building — steps away
• Central Warehouse Building — 0.9 mi
• Transcontinental Railroad — 0.9 mi
• Devereaux House/ Wm Stains & Wm Jennings (2) — 1.0 mi