The Mormon Trail

The first Mormon company came down to this part of the Platte on April 28, 1847, after crossing dry sand ridges from the Loup. William Clayton's journal, as Hal Knight's 111 Days to Zion retells it, found the prairie level and green, with wild onions "the largest I have ever seen" and dust blowing into every wagon. They passed ground Grand Island now covers and camped the next night across from the island itself. Clayton wrote that the wind was perfectly dry and that his writing desk had begun to crack.

What the plaque says

The Mormon Trail Religious freedom, an American ideal, has on occasion been denied certain sects because of prejudice. Mormons were once persecuted and forced from their homes. The north bank of the Platte River served as the exodus route for thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints (Mormons). Driven from Nauvoo, Illinois, Mormon leader Brigham Young led the first migration up this valley in 1847 to found the proposed state of Deseret, now Utah. During the following two decades, thousands more gathered at Winter Quarters on the west bank of the Missouri River near present Florence, Nebraska, before beginning the trek across the plains and mountains to their land of Milk and Honey. The journey called for strength and courage, as well as faith, for tragedy often stalked their wagons and handcarts, turning this valley into a Mormon "trail of tears." Hundreds of pioneers lie buried along this trail, most in unmarked graves. After 1860 the overland trail along the south bank of the river was lined with road ranches and stage stations, but the Mormon Trail had few such conveniences, and the pioneer settlements here in Hall County were almost the last vestiges of civilization until the travelers reached Utah. Hall County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — steps away
  Edward Durell Stone's island pavilion in Grand Island and an 1890s railroad town of moved buildings, among them the cottage where Henry Fonda was born in 1905.

More markers nearby

• La Grande Isle — 1.5 mi
• Tornado Hill — 2.4 mi
• The Lincoln Memorial Highway — 3.1 mi
• Pioneer Park — 3.1 mi