Start at Mormon Trail Center, State Street and North Ridge Drive, Omaha, NE 68112, (402) 453-9372.

• 1. NORTH MORMON AND CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH FERRY.

  The same ferryboat which had served as the Middle Mormon Ferry from July to September 1846 was moved up the Missouri River in September 1846 to cross people, livestock, and wagons from Ferryville, Iowa to Winter Quarters, Nebraska (about where Ferry Street now is in northeast Omaha). If you drive east on Interstate 680 from the Missouri to I-29, continue on east to Crescent, and go south on Highway 183 to Council Bluffs, you will nearly retrace the covered wagon route followed by Gold Rushers from Kanesville to the north Mormon ferry and later Sarpy flat boat service.
  
  In early 1850, it was moved a second time to the Bethlehem, Iowa to Plattsmouth, Nebraska site, where it became the became the South Mormon Ferry.
  
  

• 2. WINTER QUARTERS MILL.

  
  
  Now standing at 30th and Dick Collins Road, two blocks northeast of its original site, the mill is still used to supply a local feed store. Mill Creek, which originally powered the overshot mill, is now piped underground to the Missouri River. The mill has been converted from water power to steam and then electricity.
  
  

• 3. SITES OF COUNCIL HOUSE AND BRIGHAM YOUNG'S HOME.

  Two focal points of Winter Quarters the 25' or 30' square Council House and the two-story Brigham Young's home were only a few yards apart. The Council House stood on the site of the present fire station at North 30th and Dick Collins Road. That civic and religious center was small, but served as a dance school, social center, town hall, and Church conference center.
  
  President Young's home was a few yards northwest of the Council House. The first police and fireman's ball in Nebraska was held there 4 March 1847. A dance school attracted about 400. Church conferences were held here during inclement weather.
  
  

• 4. KIMBALL MONUMENT.

  This monument marks the first stop west of Winter Quarters on the Mormon Trail. This tall hewn stone with bronze marker and text were placed by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. (2Ç blocks north of McKinley Avenue [Highway 36] on 69th Street).
  
  

• 5. ELKHORN CROSSING SITE.

  This small concrete marker specifies where the LDS pioneer ferry and later Unites States government bridge crossed the Elkhorn River. (It is Ç mile east of the center of the Elkhorn River, across the south ditch of Highway 36, and almost in perfect alignment with the center stripe of 240th Street, which dead-ends at Highway 36 and three paces west of power line pole.
  
  

• 6. LIBERTY POLE AND WAGON TRAIN ORGANIZING SITE.

  One of the most difficult crossings on the way west was the Elkhorn River during Spring floods. Once crossed, the river provided fish, game, birds, timber, grass, and water which quickly rose in shallow dug wells. (West side of Elkhorn River, via King Lake Road, south of Highway 36.)

• 1. SUMMER QUARTERS SITE.

  Summer Quarters was a quid pro quo for the Omaha Tribe in an area where they might legitimately inherit cabins, gardens, and farms in the territory traditionally considered their tribal lands. (about two miles northwest of present Fort Calhoun, Nebraska)
  
  

• 2. SITE OF CALHOUN COMMUNITY.

  This is the abandoned site of one of more than 80 Mormon communities built in southwest Iowa during the late 1840's. It grew out of an early Daniel Brown camp just north of Calhoun. (West of Logan, Iowa in Harrison County.)
  
  

• 3. SITE OF HARRIS GROVE COMMUNITY.

  This Mormon community characterized the practice of so organizing that all residents would pull up stakes at the same time and go west to Utah together. (Six or seven miles east of present Missouri Valley, Iowa.)
  
  

• 4. SITE OF TENNESSEE HOLLOW TABERNACLE.

  The Federal census of 1 June 1850 listed 254 of 7,828 Pottawattamie residents as born in Tennessee. It appears that enough immigrants from Tennessee lived near here to name the area Tennessee Hollow. (One mile south of Missouri Valley, Iowa on Highway 183 and half a mile east on a winding gravel road to Old Town or Oak Grove Cemetery).
  
  

• 5. PURLOINED CEMETERY AND DUGOUT SITES.

  The great hole in the hill at Honey Creek is where a pioneer LDS cemetery was dug up 35 years ago and hauled away as fill dirt for construction of Interstate 29. (at Honey Creek, Iowa between council Bluffs and Missouri Valley by way of Highway 183)
  
  

• 6. SEGMENTS OF OLD MORMON ROADS.

  There are interesting fragments of old Mormon roads in southwest Iowa. Two of those most easily identified are Highway 183 running north out of Council Bluffs and Highway G66 running east from Highway 275, a couple of miles south of Council Bluffs. Running west from Highway 183, just south of Crescent, is Mormon Bridge Road. When it crosses Interstate Highway 29 going west, it becomes Interstate Highway 680. That Mormon Bridge Road and I-680 segment lies where Mormon pioneers, California Gold Rushers, and Oregon emigrants went west to the North Ferry at Ferryville after having come out of Kanesville. That Kanesville road north was the same as present Highway 183. Highway 183 north out of Council Bluffs to Monona County).

• 1. SITE OF BETHLEHEM AND SOUTH MORMON FERRY.

  In 1837, United States Indian Sub-Agent, Edwin James, had set up his office and an Indian farm along the Iowa side of the Missouri River opposite present Plattsmouth, Nebraska. When the sub-agency office was moved north to Point aux Poules, this area became known as Old Agency and Old Agency Farm. (Vicinity of the east end of Burlington Railroad Bridge from Iowa into Plattsmouth, Nebraska.)
  
  

• 2. SITE OF EIGHT-MILE GROVE, SOUTH MORMON TRAIL.

  The Bethlehem Ferry unloaded about where Plattsmouth's Main Street now is. The South Mormon Trail appears to have gone west less than a mile and then headed southwest. Eight Mile Grove may have been renamed after 1854 when Nebraska was opened to settlement. (About six miles southwest of present Plattsmouth where wagon trains could find adequate wood, water, and grass for camping.)
  
  

• 3. WEEPING WATER CAMPSITE.

  This stop is likely the last campsite on the South Mormon Trail which Mormons pioneered from the Missouri River to nearly the west end of today's Cass County. (Just north of Weeping Water Creek near Weeping Water, Nebraska.)
  
  

• 4. WYOMING, NEBRASKA.

  More than 6,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Europe and the British Isles came here in the 1860's. "Down and Back" wagon trains came here from Utah in 1864, 1865, and 1866 to pick up the European Saints and take them west. (Six miles north of Nebraska City, near the mouth of Weeping Water Creek.)
  
  

• 5. MURDOCK GRAVESITE.

  This marked, but unidentified, grave traditionally believed to be of a Mormon woman, may represent scores of no longer identifiable burials along the Mormon trails. This Murdock site has been the subject of oral history for nearly 150 years. The burial likely was in 1850, though it may have been in the 1860's during the "down and back" wagon trains from Salt Lake City. (West across field from Murdock School, Murdock, Nebraska.)
  
  

• 6. SITE OF SALINE FORD.

  The Saline Ford over Salt Creek was perhaps the most noted site along the south side of the Platte River wagon road east of Grand Island or Ash Hollow. It was a normally shallow crossing on a relatively narrow and natural underwater floor of limestone. (In the vicinity of Ashland's Silver Creek Bridge over Salt Creek, Ashland, Nebraska.)