Original Marker:
No 24
Erected July 24, 1933
Big Mountain
From this point Brigham Young and the Mormon Pioneers caught their first glimpse of the valley of the Great Salt Lake, July 23, 1847. Orson Pratt, leading the vanguard of the Pioneers had reached there July 19 and put up a guide board reading "80 miles to Fort Bridger." The ill-fated Donner Party, first wagon train to use this route, crossed this divide about August 23, 1846, between that date and 1861 this trail was the route of many of the California gold seekers, the overland stage, the Mormon ox-team and handcart emigrants and the pony express.
Curernt Marker:
On 19 July 1847, scouts Orson Pratt and John Brown climbed the mountain and became the first Latter-day Saints to see the Salt Lake Valley. Due to illness, the pioneer camp had divided into three small companies. On 23 July, the last party, led by Brigham Young, reached the Big Mountain. By this time most of the first companies were already in the valley and planting crops. Mormons were not the first immigrant group to use this route into the Salt Lake Valley. The ill-fated Donner Party blazed the original trail one year earlier. they spent thirteen days cutting the trail from present-day Henefer into the valley. That delay proved disastrous later on when the party was caught in a severe winter storm in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Mormons traveled the same distance in only 6 days. Until 1861, this trail was also the route of California gold seekers, Overland Stage, Pony Express, original telegraph line, and other Mormon immigrant companies, after which Parley's Canyon was used.
