The Mormon Battalion

The soldiers were not the first Latter-day Saints here. A company of Mississippi converts, heading west to meet a migration that had been put off a year, reached the traders' adobe at El Pueblo on August 7, 1846, and traded their work for corn. Three sick detachments of the Battalion followed that autumn with wives and children, and the camp of cottonwood cabins wintered without much hunger. On May 24, 1847, nearly all of them left for the Salt Lake Valley, arriving five days after Brigham Young. The cabins left no trace, and this monument was moved in 1993.

What the plaque says

This memorial is the property of the State of Colorado A detachment of United States soldiers of The Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War spent the winter of 1846-47 near this site. With their families and Mormon immigrants from Mississippi they formed a settlement of 275 persons. They erected a church and rows of dwellings of cottonwood logs. Here were born the first white children in Colorado. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation and by Colorado members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and by citizens of Pueblo 1946

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Jacob Fowler's Lookout - Fountain City — 0.9 mi
• San Carlos de los Jupes — 8.0 mi
• Fort Reynolds — 17 mi