Westward Expansion Trails the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The Mormon Trail followed part of the Oregon Trail and then branched off at the fur trading post called Fort Bridger, founded by famed mountain man Jim Bridger. Heading south and following river valleys southwestward to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, Brigham Young led the first Mormons into present-day Utah during 1847. The Mormon Trail is 1,300 miles long and extends from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. The Mormon Trail was used for more than 20 years after the Mormons used it and has been reserved for sightseeing. The initial
Little Cottonwood Creek (Salt Lake County, Utah) Little Cottonwood Creek (Salt Lake County, Utah) Little Cottonwood Creek is one of the principal streams entering Salt Lake Valley from the east rises near the summit of the Wasatch Mountains a short distance south of the ski resort town of Alta and flows in a westerly direction through Little Cottonwood Canyon until it emerges into Salt Lake Valley about eleven miles from its source thence its course is north westerly through Sandy, Midvale and Murray, Utah until it empties into the Jordan River about six miles south of Salt Lake City. Its whole length is nearly twenty seven miles.