Winter Quarters

The first handcart company began walking from Iowa City on June 9, 1856, after crossing the Atlantic. Captain Edmund Ellsworth led 274 people with 56 handcarts and three wagons. The carts were built all of wood, some of green timber, and broke down early; at Winter Quarters, by then the town of Florence, Ellsworth had the wooden axles sheathed in tin and fitted with thick hoop-iron skeins so they turned easier and held. The company left on July 20, buried 13 on the trail and reached Salt Lake City on September 26, the same day as Daniel McArthur's company.

What the plaque says

Winter Quarters Here in 1846 an oppressed people fleeing from a vengeful mob found a haven in the wilderness. Winter Quarters, established under the direction of the Mormon leader Brigham Young, sheltered more than 3,000 people during the winter of 1846-1847. Housed in log cabins, sod houses and dugouts, they lacked adequate provisions. When spring arrived more than six hundred of the faithful lay buried in the cemetery on the hill. Winter Quarters became the administration center of a great religious movement. In the spring of 1847 a pioneer band left Winter Quarters to cross the Plains to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Thousands of others followed this trail. In 1855, Young was forced to utilize handcarts for transportation. The first company, comprising about five hundred persons, left here on July 17 and reached the Valley on September 26, 1856. The town of Florence, established in 1854, was built upon the site of Winter Quarters. James C. Mitchell and Associates of the Florence Land Company established a thriving community. The Bank of Florence, built in 1856, stands today as a symbol of our historical past. Florence Historical Foundation Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 0.2 mi
  The Latter-day Saint camp of 1846 to 1848 on Omaha land in what is now Florence, where hundreds died the first winter, and the cemetery and trail center beside it.
• Malcolm X Birthsite — 3.1 mi
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 5.2 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 6.0 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.

More markers nearby

• The Bank of Florence — steps away
• Potter's Field — 1.6 mi
• Crook House — 1.7 mi
• Fort Omaha — 2.0 mi