Guides and Trail History
Traveling the Trail Today
There are many good visitors' guides to the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. Some encompass all of Mormon history, some follow just the pioneer trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City, and yet others focus on individual segments of the trail to Utah. Here are a few to try:
- Berrett, LaMar C., gen. ed. Sacred Places: A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites. 6 vol. (state by state) Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004.
- Black, Susan Easton, and William G. Hartley, eds. The Iowa Mormon Trail: Legacy of Faith and Courage. Orem, Utah: Helix Publishing, 1997.
- Eldredge, John. Illustrated Emigrants' Guide to the Historic Sites Along the Hastings/Mormon Trail, Fort Bridger to the Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City: Trailbuff.com Press, 2005.
- Franzwa, Gregory M. The Mormon Trail Revisited. Tooele, Utah: The Patrice Press, 2007.
- Kimball, Stanley B. Historic Sites and Markers Along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
- Kimball, Stanley. The Mormon Pioneer Trail: The MTA 1997 Official Guide. Salt Lake City: Mormon Trails Association, 1997.
- Knight, Hal, and Stanley B. Kimball. 111 Days to Zion. Salt Lake City: Big Moon Traders, 1997.
See also the National Park Service Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide series, available for download from this website and in hard copy from the National Park Service and various trail visitor venues. A fold-out map brochure is also available from the National Park Service.
Mormon Pioneer Trail History
- Arrington, Leonard J. The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints. Alfred A. Knopf, 1st paperback ed., 1992.
- Bennett, Richard E. Mormons at the Missouri: Winter Quarters, 1846-1852: “And Should we Die...”. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
- Bennett, Richard E. We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846-1848. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.
- Burton, Sir Richard, F. City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California. Niwot: The University Press of Colorado, 1990.
- Clayton, William. Willicam Clayton’s Journal: A Daily Record of the Journey of the Original Company of ‘Mormon’ Pioneers from Illinois, to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. 1921. Reprint, Dallas, Texas: G.K. Taylor Publishing, 1973.
- Clayton, William W. The Latter Day Saint's Emigrants' Guide. Edited by Stanley B. Kimball. Gerald, MO: The Patrice Press, 1983.
- DeVoto, Bernard. The Year of Decision: 1846. Boston: Little Brown and Company., 1943.
- Slaughter, William W. Trail of Hope: The Story of the Mormon Trail. Salt Lake City, Utah: Shadow Mountain Publishing, 1997.
- Stegner, Wallace. The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
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