Mormon pioneers These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona. By 1885, Mormon communities were being established in northern Mexico. The Mormon pioneers are celebrated annually on July 24 in the State of Utah, known as Pioneer Day. Salt Lake City also has the Mormon Pioneer Memorial Monument, where Brigham Young, Eliza R. Snow, and other Mormon pioneers are buried and where a memorial exists dedicated to all who crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. Additionally, the Pioneer (characterized as "Pioneer Pete") is
History of Salt Lake City the Great Salt Lake Valley a year before the Mormon pioneers. This group had spent weeks traversing difficult terrain and brush, cutting a road through the Wasatch Mountains, coming through Emigration canyon into the Salt Lake Valley on August 12, 1846. This same path would be used by the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers, and for many years after that by those following them to Salt Lake. On July 24, 1847 143 men, three women and two children founded Great Salt Lake City several miles to the east of the Great Salt Lake, nestled in the northern most reaches of