The trail begins at Nauvoo, IL. The religious persecution of the day ran them out of Nauvoo two years after Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844. They knew that they had to find a place where they could worship in the freedom America had to offer. They also knew that they were to find safety in the "tops of the mountains".
In the wintertime of 1846, their exodus began out of Nauvoo when the Mississippi River froze enough so that they could drive their wagons across the river into Iowa on the ice. Their hard and cold trip took them as far as Winter Quarters, Nebraska (now Omaha) where they then prepared for the extended journey to what would be known as the Valley of the Salt Lake in the mountains west which was a desolate land nobody else. wanted. More info?
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