Mormon Trail Mormon Trail The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,092 km) route that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled from 1846 to 1868. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. The Mormon Trail extends from Nauvoo, Illinois, which was the principal settlement of the Latter Day Saints from 1839 to 1846, to Salt Lake City, Utah, which was settled by Brigham Young and his followers beginning in 1847. From Council Bluffs, Iowa to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, the trail follows much
Salt Lake Cutoff he returned to Salt Lake City and discovered a route, north of the Great Salt Lake. His newly blazed trail (cutoff) went from Salt Lake City back to the Oregon Trail and/or California Trail and joined the California-Oregon near the City of Rocks, Idaho-- about north of today's Utah-Idaho border. This became known as the Salt Lake Cutoff and was about the same distance as the Fort Hall, Snake River, Raft River, City of Rocks route which it bypassed. On the Humboldt River portion of the California Trail route, Hensley met and talked with a party of former Mormon Battalion