Mormon Trail Historical Tours
Mormon Trail Center Tour
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Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters
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Winter Quarters
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Winter Quarters Picket Fence and Moat
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Middle Mormon Ferry Westbound Debarkation Site
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Middle Ferry II (Sarpy's Ferry) Westbound Debarkation Point
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Cold Spring Camp
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Council Hill
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Cutler's Park
Kanesville Tabernacle Tour
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Replica of 1847 Kanesville Tabernacle
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Saw Pit Site
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Historical Blockhouse Site
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Sites of Union Hotel, Music Hall, and Cottonwood Jail
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Sites of City Pharmacy & Wholesale and Washington Store
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Sites of J.E. Johnson Enterprises
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Sites of the Frontier Guardian and the Weekly Bugle
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Kanesville Mormon Cemetery
East Mormon Trail Tour
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Grand Encampment
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Mormon Battalion Mustering Grounds
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Taylor/Pratt Hill
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Mormon Trail Wayside Park
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Site of Hyde Park
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Sites of Council Point, Emigrant Landing and Welsh Tabernacle
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Western Historic Trails Center
West Mormon Trail Tour
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North Mormon and California Gold Rush Ferry
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Winter Quarters Mill
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Sites of Council House and Brigham Young's Home
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Kimball Monument
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Elkhorn Crossing Site
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Liberty Pole and Wagon Train Organizing Site
North Mormon Tail Tour
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Summer Quarters Site
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Site of Calhoun Community
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Site of Harris Grove Community
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Site of Tennessee Hollow Tabernacle
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Purloined Cemetery and Dugout Sites
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Segments of Old Mormon Roads
South Mormon Trail Tour
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Site of Bethlehem and South Mormon Ferry
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Sight of Eight-Mile Grove, South Mormon Trail
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Weeping Water Campsite
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Wyoming, Nebraska
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Murdock Gravesite
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Site of Saline Ford
Mormon Trail Center Tour:
Start at Mormon Trail Center, State Street and North Ridge
Drive, Omaha, NE 68112, (402) 453-9372.
(Click on images for larger pictures)
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1. MORMON TRAIL CENTER AT WINTER QUARTERS
(formerly Winter Quarters
Visitors Center).
Site of Mormon cemetery on bluff overlooking Winter Quarters.
Mormon Pioneer Cemetery and Cutler's Park Cemetery were either side by side
or same.
Log cabin, covered wagon, handcart, restrooms, historical films, numerous
markers,
displays, and guides.
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2. WINTER QUARTERS.
Stretched more than a mile southeastward from the Council House just below
bluffs overlooking Missouri River. It was at least one quarter mile wide,
until
houses were moved west to reinforce the picket fence, making the city even
wider.
Population reached almost 5,000 by Spring of 1847.
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3. WINTER QUARTERS PICKET FENCE AND MOAT.
Go eastward down State Street hill two blocks to north/south gravel road just
west of Presbyterian Church, which in turn, is just
uphill west of the Florence (or Mormon) Park. West of Winter Quarters corral
and
hemming Winter Quarters to the Missouri River was a six-foot high picket
fence, probably
two miles long, running approximately along the path of this gravel road.
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4. MIDDLE MORMON FERRY WESTBOUND DEBARKATION SITE.
Follow Highway 75
southward about 10Ç miles. It follows 30th Street until it feeds into the
North Freeway,
which then joins I-480 South. Stay in the leftmost lane as Highway 75
crosses over I-80
and feeds into the southbound Kennedy Freeway. Exit at "L" Street (Highways
275 and 92)
and turn left. As you go eastward about one mile, "L" Street becomes
Missouri Avenue.
Turn right at the light on 13th Street just before Highways 275 and 92 cross
the South
Omaha Bridge over the Missouri River into Iowa. Just below this bridge is
where the
eastbound Middle Mormon ferry departed downstream across the Missouri River
to Iowa.
Go south on 13th Street about 1Ç miles past two Mandan Park entrances on your
left and
then turn left at the second Mount Vernon Gardens park entrance. Get out and
follow the
rock pathway through the trees until you are looking southward along the
Missouri River.
The westbound Middle Mormon ferry landed from Iowa at the base of the bluff
on which
you are standing. After debarking, wagons made a tortuous assent up the
steep coulee
to present "V" Street.
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5. MIDDLE FERRY II (SARPY'S FERRY) WESTBOUND DEBARKATION POINT.
Go southward about Ç mile on 13th Street and turn left onto Bellevue
Boulevard. Proceed southward to
the Fontenelle Forest Preserve Headquarters at 1111 Bellevue Boulevard. (Ask
the Ranger
to describe the course of the Missouri River in the 1840s and 50s.) For a
fee, you can take
the nature trail hike to the site of a historical marker being placed along
Hidden Lake, an
old "oxbow" remnant of the 1847 Missouri River channel.
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6. COLD SPRING CAMP.
Retrace your route northward up 13th Street to "L" Street. Then go westward
about 4 miles on "L" Street to 60th Street. There is a historical marker
near the
Satellite Motel on the northwest corner of the intersection. In 1846, the
area had several
wooded hills around a "favorite cool spring" just east of Little Papillion
Creek.
Unfortunately, the park-like vista of the area has been dramatically
transformed from its
appearance in the mid-1800's. In recent times, the hills west of 60th Street
have been
leveled, either for the railroad grade just to the north or when the Karen
Addition
subdivision was laid out here. The "favorite cool spring" known to the
pioneers is no
longer visible, but has been capped and its water piped underground westward
to the Little
Papillion Creek. The two remaining hills are on the northeast corner of the
intersection on
the site of former Catholic St. Joseph High School, now owned by an group of
Christian
churches.
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7. COUNCIL HILL.
Go north on 60th Street and take the westbound entrance to I-80. Take the
72nd Street exit and turn northward. Just before the exit, note the cuts in
the hillsides on
either side of the freeway. The highest point of this hill was apparently
cut down by
construction of Interstate 80.
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8. CUTLER'S PARK.
Go northward on 72nd Street about 8 miles and turn right onto Sorenson
Parkway. Then go about 1Ç miles eastward and turn left on 56th Street. This
road
becomes Mormon Bridge Road. Follow it about 1Â miles to the northeast and
pull off the
road just past Young Street. The first project of the Douglas-Sarpy Counties
Mormon
Trails Association has been to create a memorial park around this small
monument
commemorating the first civically organized community in Nebraska. Occupied
on 6-7
August 1846, this site was intended to be the 1846-47 winter headquarters of
the Church.
But only five weeks later, on 11 September, the Mormons abandoned it in an
effort to avoid
war between its Indian hosts, the Oto/Missouri Tribe and the Omaha Tribe,
over rent for
temporary use of their land. The Oto/Missouri had occupied the area since
about 1700,
while the Omaha Tribe had just arrived there from the Elkhorn Valley in 1845.
Kanesville Tabernacle Tour:
Start at Kanesville Tabernacle, 222 East Broadway, Council
Bluffs, IA 51503, (712) 322-0500.
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1. REPLICA OF 1847 KANESVILLE TABERNACLE.
Little more than a block southeast of original tabernacle. Current site
encompasses nearly a city block landscaped as
Kanesville Park. Warm weather springs destroyed the floor of the original
tabernacle, and
it gradually fell into disuse. The tabernacle was dismantled in about 1849.
[Original tabernacle was located north of present Kanesville Boulevard and
east of present North
1st Street.
Marker is located at southwest corner of Baugh and Kanesville Boulevard.]
Situated next to the tabernacle is a visitor's center. The picture includes
the Eternal Flame which was lit at the bonfire in Council Bluffs on February
4, 1996. Bonfires were built along the entire trail in commemoration of the
pioneers leaving Nauvoo on February 4, 1846.
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2. SAW PIT SITE.
The Mormon pioneer saw pit was just east of the rebuilt 1847 log
tabernacle, about where the Taco Bell Restaurant now stands. A long trench
was dug
there, probably in 1846, deep enough for a man to stand in.
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3. HISTORIC BLOCKHOUSE SITE.
Where stood Blockhouse Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. Nucleus around which Kanesville/Council Bluffs grew. The
Blockhouse straddled East Pierce Street just east of Franklin.
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4. SITES OF UNION HOTEL, MUSIC HALL, AND COTTONWOOD JAIL.
Along the west side of Hyde (now South First) Street opposite Platner Street
are the sites of three important
buildings, side by side, from the thriving 1840s of Kanesville. These three
buildings were
likely the "upper" extent of the Kanesville business district.
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5. SITES OF CITY PHARMACY & WHOLESALE AND WASHINGTON STORE.
These two
businesses were east of Hyde (now South First) Street north of Main Street
(now
Broadway).
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6. SITES OF J. E. JOHNSON ENTERPRISES.
Although his emporium on Main Street (now
Broadway) was the largest mercantile supply house in Kanesville, Joseph Ellis
Johnson
(not to be confused with Confederate Civil War General J. E. Johnston) was
innovative in
expanding it into what we now would call a mini-mall. The emporium itself
was stocked
with great amounts of general merchandise pharmaceuticals, food, cloth and
clothing,
dishes, and books. The second floor included a rental hall, supplied on
request, with
delicacies, soft drinks and ice cream.
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7. SITES OF THE FRONTIER GUARDIAN AND THE WEEKLY BUGLE.
Strange as it may seem, the Mormons published competing newspapers directly
across the street from each other.
Orson Hyde published his very newsy Whig Frontier Guardian newspaper from an
office
and adjacent print shop looked north on Main Street (now called West
Broadway) from just
west of Hyde Street (present South 1st Street). [Present location of Lyle's
Discount Tires
on Southwest corner of 1st Street (Hyde) and Broadway (Main).] First Almon
Babbitt, and
then J. E. Johnson published The Weekly Bugle directly across the street to
the north.
[Present location of Sewing and Vacuum Sales store on Northwest corner of 1st
Street
(Hyde) and Broadway (Main).]
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8. KANESVILLE MORMON CEMETERY.
This is the largest LDS cemetery in the Middle
Missouri Valley, although only half a dozen marked graves now date back to
LDS times
(1846-53). [Renamed Fairview Cemetery in 1863 and given to the City of
Council Bluffs in
1974.]
East Mormon Trail Tour:
Start at Kanesville Tabernacle, 222 East Broadway, Council
Bluffs, IA 51503, (712) 322-0500.
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1. GRAND ENCAMPMENT.
Catch-basin near Missouri River for LDS wagon trains crossing Southern Iowa
during exodus from Illinois and Southeast Iowa. (On either side of Highway
92 from Iowa School for the Deaf, east nine miles, almost to Treynor, Iowa.)
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2. MORMON BATTALION MUSTERING GROUNDS.
The longest infantry march in the history of the U.S. Army started here 20
July 1846. About 489 men, about 12 teenage boys (serving as aids to
officers), and about 20 wives (serving as laundresses and cooks)
volunteered in July 1846 to serve in the U.S. Army during War with Mexico.
[Historical
marker located just north of the main west entrance to Iowa School for the
Deaf, southeast
of where Highways 92 and 375/275 cross.]
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3. TAYLOR/PRATT HILL.
Where John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt camped in June 1846 as part of Grand
Encampment. At the foot of the hill was built an arbor for church meetings
and
social activities and where Mormon Battalion cotillion ball was held. Lower
Mosquito
Bridge was built nearby. [200 block of East 29th Avenue atop hill just south
of Interstate
80 and east of US Highway 275.]
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4. MORMON TRAIL WAYSIDE PARK.
South of Pioneer Trail or Highway G66, and west of
County Road L45.) This privately financed park is a window on rural
southwest Iowa 150
years ago.
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5. SITE OF HYDE PARK.
This community sometimes is confused with the rather long grove
of trees also called Hyde Park. This is where Orson Hyde came to farm after
his nine month mission to England. He had about 50 acres, about 30 acres
in crops. Hyde said he had his farm enclosed with split rail fence, which
he himself built. (West of Dumfries Road,
about half a mile northwest of St John's Church. By permission of Henry
Brandt, owner of the land, you may wish to open the long iron gate and walk
several hundred yards west of the gray house. That is the approximate
location of the Orson Hyde home. Be sure to
close the cattle gate both on entering and on leaving the site.)
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6. SITES OF COUNCIL POINT, EMIGRANT LANDING, AND WELSH TABERNACLE.
Council Point was the first LDS town built in the Middle Missouri Valley. As
a support town
(population about 250-300) for Middle Mormon Ferry (July-September 1846), it
was the third
largest and most cosmopolitan LDS town in the Middle Missouri Valley. The
Welsh
Tabernacle was the site of the 4 July 1850 parade escorting Orson Hyde just
prior to his
first trip to Salt Lake City. Emigrant Landing/Fort Croghan/Hardin was the
Missouri River
landing for more than 8,000 European LDS who traveled from Liverpool, England
to New
Orleans by contract ships and up the Mississippi/Missouri Rivers by
steamboat. A "String
Town" of widely separated houses spread along the road running Northeastward
from here
to Kanesville. [The town of Council Point stood in the vicinity of South
24th Street and
Gifford Road, south of Highway 92, a quarter of a mile west of Lake Manawa.
It's Main
Street ran East-West along or parallel to Gifford Road between 20th and 24th
Streets. A
historical marker is placed just east of 24th Street and south of Gifford
Road. Welsh
Tabernacle was located on high ground a few hundred yards northwest of
Council Point.
Emigrant Landing/Fort Croghan/Hardin was located about 100 yards south of
Gifford Road
and west of 20th Street. To see it, go east on Gifford Road to 20th Street,
and then south
past the last house on your right. Look west 300 yards and see the sharp,
but uniform rise
in the land. That was the north bank of the Missouri River.]
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7. WESTERN HISTORIC TRAILS CENTER.
This visitor's center was dedicated October 4, 1997. This is a place of
education where families can come to draw from a collection of resources,
that correct more than a century of historical misconception concerning our
pioneer migrations. While there were many points along the Missouri River
where travelers left for the migrations to Oregon, California, Utah, Colorado
and to other future western states and territories, the northernmost point
covering the Council Bluffs, Omaha, and Bellevue area was th
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