Talk:Mormon Trail

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Good article Mormon Trail has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
June 11, 2006 Good article nominee Listed
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Contents

[edit] Rewrite of this article

This article needs major work. A revised version should include, at least:

  • introduction/orientation to the trail,
  • discussion of all the major geographic points,
  • appropriate historical events at various points,
  • quotations from journals and/or historians,
  • experiences by non-Mormon groups who used segments of the trail,
  • further expansion of Mormon colonies,
  • the trail as a protected national site, and
  • links and "See also" to appropriate Wiki articles

The LDS Mormon Trail site lists the following points of interest. Many of them may already have articles or be worthy of them. I've organized them here in sequence, by modern state.

Illinois:

  • Nauvoo -- trails starting point, original home base for the LDS migrants.

Iowa:

  • Sugar Creek (7 miles west of Nauvoo)
  • Richardson's Point (35 miles west)
  • Chariton River Crossing (80 miles west)
  • Locust Creek (103 miles west)
  • Garden Grove (128 miles west)
  • Mt. Pisgah (153 miles west)
  • Nishnabotna River Crossing (232 miles west)
  • Grand Encampment (255 miles west)
  • Kanesville (later Council Bluffs) (265 miles west)

Nebraska:

Wyoming:

Utah:

  • Echo Canyon (1246 miles west)
  • Big Mountain (1279 miles west)
  • Golden Pass Road (1281 miles west)
  • Emigration Canyon (Donner Hill) (1283 miles west)
  • Salt Lake Valley (1297 miles west)

We could select from these points, chosing the most major. Or points could be combined into a narrative dealing with an incident, i.e. Wyoming sites dealing with the Martin and Willie handcart companies. Some minor sites have one story or incident attached to them. Do you like the geographic sequence? Other alternatives? How would the editors like to procede? WBardwin 03:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I generally agree with your proposed outline, with a few additional comments:
  1. We ought to keep in mind that from the Missouri River to Fort Bridger the Mormon Trail coincides with the Oregon and California Trails. There are articles on both, and also on the Emigrant Trail. My suggestion would be that we cover the geography of this section more lightly and just emphasize the landmarks or settlements that were especially important to the Mormon migration. We would go into bit more detail on the sections in Iowa and from Fort Bridger to Salt Lake City that are unique to the Mormon Trail.
  2. I'd suggest going lightly on quotations from journals. It could easily get out of hand if every editor with an pioneer ancestor wanted to add a quotation from grandpa or grandma's journal.
  3. Because of the extensive overlap with the Oregon and California trails, I'd suggest limiting discussion of non-Mormon emigrants on the trail to a brief discussion of their use of the section from Fort Bridger to Salt Lake City.
  4. I'm not sure what you have in mind by "further expansion of Mormon colonies." If you mean the colonization/settlement of the Mountain West, including such settlements as San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Idaho, Arizona, Alberta, etc., I think that should really be a separate article (assuming one doesn't already exist). I recall many years ago reading a book by Milton Hunter called Brigham Young the Colonizer that deals with this topic; I'm not sure what more recent literature is available.—BRMo 04:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the thoughts. I would generally agree with your four points. Certainly Mormon experiences should be heavily highlighted, and places/times where Mormons and others met and interacted should be a focus too. People like Jim Bridger and Thomas L. Kane (I just wrote his article) bring a context to the LDS experience. Journal entries are our primary source for the trail experience, but they should be carefully weeded for relevance. The LDS external link that provided the list above uses journal entries, as was done in the Ken Burns TV documentaries, to tell the story. We would want to use prose, with very select journal entries. On #4, I think a secondary article is a great idea (and a lot of work, although I read Hunter's book some years ago), but readers should understand that the "Mormon Trail" didn't come to an abrupt halt at Salt Lake Valley. Over the life of the migration, emigrant trains simply rested in the valley for a day or two and then moved on to other areas as assigned, like the Sanpete and Cache valleys. A sentence or two with examples of specific wagon trains or companies would probably be enough.
Lots of questions about organization remain. Which of the places on the list are notable enough for separate articles (if they don't have one now)? Which places could be reasonably combined in sections, like the eastern Wyoming sites? And how are we to deal with elapsed time, as early companies had different experiences than later companies? One chunk for geography and another for linear time?
I found a couple of survey style books about the trail, but there are many other sources for individual places. Will do some reading to refresh my memory. WBardwin 06:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Here are my thoughts on the questions you've posed:
Which of the places on the list are notable enough for separate articles (if they don't have one now)? I've added links to articles where I could them. I'd say articles are also needed at least for Sugar Creek, Red Butte, Rocky Ridge, Echo Canyon, and Emigration Canyon. A couple of points of interest that could be added are Genoa, Nebraska (settled by the Latter-day Saints as a supply point) and This Is The Place Heritage Park. I'm sure other landmarks will be identified with additional research.
Which places could be reasonably combined in sections, like the eastern Wyoming sites? Some suggested sections: Iowa (mostly covering the 1840s); the Missouri River area (Winter Quarters / Kanesville / Florence); Missouri River to Fort Laramie; Fort Laramie to Fort Bridger (with a focus on the handcart companies); and Fort Bridger to Salt Lake Valley. The Iowa section could include a brief subsection on the route used by the handcart companies from Iowa City to Florence.
And how are we to deal with elapsed time, as early companies had different experiences than later companies? One chunk for geography and another for linear time? I think the organization of the Mormon Trail article should focus on geography. Content that is intrinsically chronological could be moved to the Mormon Pioneer article. Would it make sense to tackle both of these articles at once to try to ensure that they complement each other without simply being repetitive?—BRMo 20:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sites of rescue of Willie and Martin handcart companies

I've been doing a little research on the trail. I was a bit surprised at how little information seems to be available about two of the most important sites on the trail, the locations where members of the rescue party first found the Willie and Martin companies.

According to Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies by Bartholomew and Arrington, the Willie Company was stopped by snow (and had run out of flour) "near the Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater." I haven't seen any indication that there is any marker or identifier of the site. There is a marker for the Willie Company and an LDS memorial site located at Rock Creek, but Rock Creek is two or three days travel further west and would have been reached with the assistance of the rescuers.

The Martin Company was halted for 9 nine days near "Red Buttes" (called "Red Bluff" or "Red Bluffs" in some of the accounts), which apparently is about 10 miles west of the last crossing of the North Platte near Casper. The accounts say 56 emigrants died there, food was running out, and hope was running out. Again, I haven't found of any indication that there may be a marker near that site, and in fact the Wyoming Web site mentions a proposal for open pit gravel mines in the area. However, there is a memorial and LDS information center at Martin's Cove near Devil's Gate, where the party was halted by another storm about a week after the rescue.

My assumption is that the Rock Creek and Martin's Cove sites have been memorialized because the specific locations could be identified, while the location of the camps near the Fifth Crossing and near Red Buttes where the rescue parties found the pioneers are unknown.

I've also noticed a lot of resulting misinformation on various Web sites. For example, several sites say that the rescuers found the Martin Company at Martin's Cove, though the actual location was some 65 miles east.

The Wyoming site on emigrant trails is quite good.BRMo 04:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Some good edits are being made, most are without references. While the article is still young, it would be good to add references to all of the content additions. This will help the article be stable and of high quality. The article is already setup with a reference system; just include notes/references with <ref> & </ref>. uriah923(talk) 05:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

A map of the trail would help this article greatly. If anyone has a properly licenced one we could use, please put it in the article. Tom Stringham 02:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vanguard Company

Should we produce a paragraph on the initial company under Brigham Young -- which blazed the trail, kept a distance record, established "mailboxes" and organized a ferry? Could be a good transition from the background section into the list of sites. And there are a number of good primary and secondary references. WBardwin 05:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. uriah923(talk) 13:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I began a section Vanguard Company of 1847 in Mormon Pioneer -- and I have quite a bit more information. How much material on this topic should be included in this article? Two or three paragraphs summarizing the larger body of material? Opinions and comments welcome. WBardwin 08:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that sounds like a good idea. It would fit nicely as a subsection under The Trek West. Just include the "main article" tag pointing to the info on Mormon Pioneer. uriah923(talk) 16:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
added a slightly condensed version on the Vanguard Company to the article, blending it with some of the previous information. It feels long to me and I think it could propably be condensed further, so everyone feel free. With as much information as is available, is a seperate article on this company justified? Comments and edits welcome. WBardwin 18:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll take a look at the additions to see if I can shorten it. The best thing to do is probably to write a separate article on the company and then link to "more details" from here (and from Mormon Pioneer). uriah923(talk) 14:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

I think it's important that we get something in for each stop on the trail, so I'll fill it in with information from LDS.org, unless someone else sticks in info from a better source before the end of the month. In the future, anyone with corroborating sources for the LDS.org information should feel free to replace it. uriah923(talk) 22:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the collaborating

Thanks to all those who helped out with the collaboration on this article. The improvements were significant. If you're interested, the collaboration selection for June, 2006 is Anti-Mormonism. uriah923(talk) 13:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA awarded

Congratulations on the GA. There is one little thing I think should be addressed is the Sites along the trail section which IMHO should become a brilliant prose maybe sectionning it into the states and thus dumping the nice list already there onto another article. Lincher 03:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm glad my nomination went through. One question though: did you add it to the list of Good Articles? I couldn't find it, but I might have missed it. Tom Stringham 17:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)