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From Nauvoo to Council Bluffs

Stanley B. Kimball

The approximately 1,300-mile-long trek from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake valley occurred in two stages: the 265-mile march across Iowa in 1846, and the 1,032-mile journey across the plains of Nebraska and Wyoming into Utah in 1847. The Iowa portion of the trail was used relatively little, mainly by the Mormons fleeing Illinois in 1846, and by some other Mormons departing from Keokuk, Iowa, in 1853. The trail was again used in 1856 and 1857 by seven Mormon handcart companies that left from Iowa City, intersecting the 1846 Mormon trail at what is now Lewis in Cass County. Thousands of other Mormons crossed Iowa as late as 1863 both on variant spurs of the 1846 trail and on different trails. All trails, however, intersected the route of 1846 in western Iowa.

Iowa consists mainly of rolling lowlands and is less visually dramatic than Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. Distinguishing natural features in Iowa consist largely of streams and rivers. These water sources largely fix the route of the trail, and along them many important events of Mormon history took place. The most important of the streams and rivers are Sugar Creek, Des Moines River, Fox River, Chariton River, Shoal Creek, Locust Creek, Medicine Creek, Weldon River, Grand River, Nodaway River, Nishnabotna River, and, of course, the Missouri River.

In Iowa the trail generally followed primitive territorial roads as far as Bloomfield in Davis County; then it followed vague Indian and trading trails along ridges from one water source to another, ending at an Indian agent's settlement on the Missouri River at Council Bluffs. Little remains of the old trail in Iowa; time and the plow have erased almost all of it.

Because Mormons left Nauvoo in February 1846, earlier than really necessary, and because they were ill-prepared and inexperienced in moving large groups of people, the pioneers suffered more crossing Iowa in 1846 than they did traveling through Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. The skills acquired and lessons learned in Iowa, however, later served them well on the trail and in the Great Basin. The first companies probably totaled about 500 wagons and 3,000 people.