Page 5 - RAGBRAI2009

DAY 1 - COUNCIL BLUFFS TO RED OAK

Council Bluffs and the Mormon Trail through Iowa

On February 4, Hand cart on the Mormon of this year’s cycling
1846, the initial group Trail. route (Day 3). Wag-
of Mormons (Church on tracks can still
of Jesus Christ of Lat- supply the many Mor- be seen there. Con-
ter-day Saints) left mon pioneers who tinuing westward,
their home of Nau- would follow. In May of the last stop for the
voo, IL to cross what 1846, Latter-day Saints Mormon pioneers
was then the Iowa founded Mt. Pisgah, the in Iowa was Kanes-
Territory (Iowa didn’t second way station in ville, established
become a state until Iowa. Mt. Pisgah was along the Missouri
December 28, 1846), located near the cur- River. Kanesville was
taking their first dif- rent town of Thayer, formed as an outfitting
ficult steps toward the in Union County, and post for LDS members,
Great Salt Lake Valley. just a few miles south but was greatly aided
By April, the pioneers by the California gold
had established a semi- rush. After the major-
permanent settlement ity of Mormons left in
in Iowa called Garden 1852, the town was re-
Grove, which still ex- named Council Bluffs
ists today. They planted and remained a major
fields and founded outfitting post for the
the village in order to westward expansion.

The General Land Office surveys or GLOs
were the original land surveys of Iowa. Com-
pleted between the years 1836 and 1859, they
provide a detailed record of Iowa’s landscape
in the earliest stages of its transformation by
Euroamerican settlement and are a signifi-
cant resource for historians, archaeologists
and environmental scientists. These excerpts
showing Kanesville (now Council Bluffs) and
the Mormon Road from the Mississippi River
to Council Bluffs, help to document Mormon

passage through
Iowa. The GLO
survey plats were re-
cently scanned and
are available to the
public: http://ortho.
gis.iastate.edu.