Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842, on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming, United States. It became a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. The Army established a military post here in 1858 during the Utah War, until it was finally closed in 1890. A small town, Fort Bridger, Wyoming, remains near the fort and takes its name from it.
The Utah War (1857–1858), also known as the Utah Expedition, the Utah Campaign, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion, was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the US government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 to July 1858. The conflict primarily involved Mormon settlers and federal troops, escalating from tensions over governance and autonomy within the territory. There were several casualties, predominantly non-Mormon civilians. Although the war featured no significant military battles, it included the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where Mormon militia members disarmed and killed about 120 settlers traveling to California.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
The Bear River Massacre, or the Engagement on the Bear River, or the Battle of Bear River, or Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Franklin County, Idaho, on January 29, 1863. After years of skirmishes and food raids on farms and ranches, the United States Army attacked a Shoshone encampment gathered at the confluence of the Bear River and Battle Creek in what was then southeastern Washington Territory, near the present-day city of Preston. Colonel Patrick Edward Connor led a detachment of California Volunteers as part of the Bear River Expedition against Shoshone tribal chief Bear Hunter. Hundreds of Shoshone men, women, and children were killed near their lodges; the number of Shoshone victims reported by local settlers was higher than that reported by soldiers.
The Mormon pioneers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Latter-day Saints, who migrated beginning in the mid-1840s until the late-1860s across the United States from the Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley in what is today the U.S. state of Utah. At the time of the planning of the exodus in 1846, the territory comprising present-day Utah was part of the Republic of Mexico, with which the U.S. soon went to war over a border dispute left unresolved after the annexation of Texas. The Salt Lake Valley became American territory as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war.
George Albert Smith was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Brigham Young Jr. served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1899 until his death. His tenure was interrupted for one week in 1901 when Joseph F. Smith was the president of the Quorum.
Hosea Stout was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement, a Mormon pioneer, soldier, chief of police, lawyer, missionary, and politician in Utah Territory.
Chief Walkara was a Shoshone leader of the Utah Indians known as the Timpanogo and Sanpete Band. It is not completely clear what cultural group the Utah or Timpanogo Indians belonged to, but they are listed as Shoshone. He had a reputation as a diplomat, horseman and warrior, and a military leader of raiding parties, and in the Wakara War.
William Adams "Wild Bill" Hickman was an American frontiersman. He also served as a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature.
Daniel Webster Jones was an American and Mormon pioneer. He was the leader of the group that colonized what eventually became Mesa, Arizona, made the first translation of selections of The Book of Mormon into Spanish, led the first Mormon missionary expedition into Mexico, dealt frequently with the American Indians, and was the leader of the group that heroically wintered at Devil's Gate during the rescue of the stranded handcart companies in 1856.
The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.
Phineas Howe Young was a prominent early convert in the Latter Day Saint movement and was later a Mormon pioneer and a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Phineas Young was an older brother of Brigham Young, who was the president of the LDS Church and the first governor of the Territory of Utah.
Anson Call was a Mormon pioneer and an early colonizer of many communities in Utah Territory and surrounding states, perhaps best remembered in Mormon history for recording Joseph Smith's Rocky Mountain prophecy. He was the father of LDS Mexican colonizer and Mormon bishop and patriarch Anson Bowen Call (1863–1958).
Washakie is a ghost town in far northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. Lying some 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Portage, it was established in 1880 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the settlement of the Northwestern Shoshone. The Washakie Indian Farm was home to the main body of this Native American band through most of the 20th century. By the mid-1970s, Washakie's residents were gone and the property sold to a private ranching operation. Today the tribal reservation consists of a small tract containing the Washakie cemetery, and the tribe is seeking to acquire more of the surrounding land. The old LDS chapel in Washakie is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Dimick Baker Huntington was a leading Indian interpreter in early Utah Territory. He commissioned a 22-foot-long missionary panorama of C. C. A. Christensen to use in his presentations of the gospel to the Native Americans in 1871. That missionary panorama is housed in the Church History Museum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wyoming refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in Wyoming. The church's first congregation in Wyoming was organized in 1877. It has since grown to 67,797 members in 172 congregations.
Fort Lemhi was a Mormon settlement from 1855 to 1858 located approximately two miles (3 km) north of present-day Tendoy, Idaho and served as the base of operations for the Salmon River Mission. The mission was initially created as part of a larger effort to proselyte to Native Americans throughout western North America, however the fort eventually became a critical piece of Brigham Young's strategy in the Utah War. The surprise attack on Fort Lemhi in 1858 was the catalyst for bringing the Utah War to a resolution.
Silas Sanford Smith was a Mormon pioneer, a politician in the Utah Territory, and the leader of the San Juan Expedition that settled San Juan County, Utah.
The Las Vegas Mission was one of the earliest European settlements in the Las Vegas Valley. It was established by missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In May 1855, at the direction of then church president Brigham Young, thirty-two missionaries were sent to evangelize among Native Americans and establish a mission outpost in the Las Vegas Valley. The mission was abandoned in December 1857 due to growing political issues revolving Mormons and the threat of Native American attacks.
