Mormon settlers helped to make Wyoming a state
A good portion of Wyoming's first tentative steps toward statehood - which was achieved July 10, 1890 - were taken by early Latter-day Saints who established colonies, constructed roads, dug irrigation canals and helped build railroads in what was then an untamed frontier.
The 39 Church members who were called in October 1853 to build a permanent settlement near Fort Bridger were no strangers to Wyoming. Mormon pioneers had traversed Wyoming's plains and hills ever since 1847, the year the first Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley. Fort Bridger was then a trade and supply center for western bound pioneers, including Brigham Young and his fellow travelers.When the 1853 group of colonists from the Salt Lake Valley arrived at Fort Bridger, they found the place already occupied by some mountain men. The LDS colonists moved on about 12 miles southwest and established a colony that became known as Fort Supply. Brigham Young purchased Fort Bridger in 1855. When Col. Albert Sidney Johnston led a contingent of the U.S. Army against Utah, the saints abandoned Fort Supply and Fort Bridger.
LDS colonizers made significant contributions to Wyoming's growth in the 1880s when they settled the Salt River Valley - later named Star Valley - in western Wyoming. (Star Valley actually consists of two small valleys united by a narrow mountain pass. Two stakes and 14 wards are organized in the communities of Freedom, Etna, Thayne, Bedford, Grover, Afton, Osmond, Fairview, Smoot and Auburn.)
The area today is still predominantly LDS, and many of its older residents recall the history of the pastoral valley as if they had experienced it first hand. "I grew up hearing my father and my uncles tell stories about this valley," said Forest Kennington, a member of the Afton Wyoming Stake.
His grandparents, William Henry and Elizabeth Ann Lee Bracken Kennington, were among early settlers who endured Wyoming's harsh winters to help establish a community of saints in western Wyoming. To them came the sad distinction of being the first Mormon settlers who buried a child in Afton; he died in 1887.
"Star Valley wasn't an unknown quantity," said Kennington. "Trappers had been here for 50 or 60 years before the Mormon colonists came in. The Lander Trail, a cutoff of the Oregon Trail, passed through here.
"In 1877, Moses Thatcher and Bishop William Preston visited this valley. It was vacant except for a lot of Shoshone willow houses. In 1878, several apostles visited the valley, and Brigham Young Jr. dedicated it by prayer as a gathering place for the saints. The name was changed from Salt River Valley to Star Valley because Moses Thatcher said it was a star among valleys."
Kennington describes himself as a lifelong historian, and a collector of stories and artifacts. Many of his stories are preserved in a book he wrote, Salt River, the First Hundred Years. His affinity for Star Valley is summed up in the book's final lines:
"We are often asked if anything historically important happened here. To many, contention and conflict make the news and then the history from the news. It is to the everlasting credit of the people of this area, both red and white, that this western Wyoming and eastern Idaho could go through all phases of frontier development, exploration, fur trade, immigrant travel, displacement of the Indians, cattle drives and settlement without more confrontations. . . . The history of Star Valley is the story of a determined and resourceful people making a home for themselves in a harsh but beautiful valley."
The Big Horn Basin is another part of Wyoming in which Latter-day Saints made significant contributions. The colonization of this area differed from other Mormon colonization efforts in that it was Wyoming's governor who requested that the Latter-day Saints come to his state. Just 10 years after Wyoming achieved statehood, Gov. DeForrest Richards visited President Lorenzo Snow, asking that a colony of Mormons be sent into the Big Horn Basin to assist in colonizing northern Wyoming.
Today, the Big Horn Basin has three stakes and 21 wards in Burlington, Cody, Meeteetse, Otto, Powell, Byron, Cowley, Lovell, Basin, Greybull, Ten Sleep, Thermopolis and Worland.
President Snow appointed Abraham O. Woodruff of the Council of the Twelve to take charge of what became the Big Horn Basin Colonization Company. The colonists' primary task was to dig a 37-mile-long canal that would be large enough to carry water to irrigate 1,200-1,500 acres of land.
"It will take a united effort to perform this gigantic task, for we are few in number," Smoot told the colonists. "I urge you to keep the Word of Wisdom, pay your tithes and offerings. Do not profane the name of the Deity. Be honest with all men. Honor the Sabbath Day, and if you do these things, this will be a land of Zion unto you and your children and children's children throughout the generations that are to come. And that you may be united, I now, as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, call each and all of you upon a mission to help build up this country, and if you will do this, the Lord will bless you forever."
Wyoming today has 51,000 members in 16 stakes.
The 39 Church members who were called in October 1853 to build a permanent settlement near Fort Bridger were no strangers to Wyoming. Mormon pioneers had traversed Wyoming's plains and hills ever since 1847, the year the first Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley. Fort Bridger was then a trade and supply center for western bound pioneers, including Brigham Young and his fellow travelers.When the 1853 group of colonists from the Salt Lake Valley arrived at Fort Bridger, they found the place already occupied by some mountain men. The LDS colonists moved on about 12 miles southwest and established a colony that became known as Fort Supply. Brigham Young purchased Fort Bridger in 1855. When Col. Albert Sidney Johnston led a contingent of the U.S. Army against Utah, the saints abandoned Fort Supply and Fort Bridger.
LDS colonizers made significant contributions to Wyoming's growth in the 1880s when they settled the Salt River Valley - later named Star Valley - in western Wyoming. (Star Valley actually consists of two small valleys united by a narrow mountain pass. Two stakes and 14 wards are organized in the communities of Freedom, Etna, Thayne, Bedford, Grover, Afton, Osmond, Fairview, Smoot and Auburn.)
The area today is still predominantly LDS, and many of its older residents recall the history of the pastoral valley as if they had experienced it first hand. "I grew up hearing my father and my uncles tell stories about this valley," said Forest Kennington, a member of the Afton Wyoming Stake.
His grandparents, William Henry and Elizabeth Ann Lee Bracken Kennington, were among early settlers who endured Wyoming's harsh winters to help establish a community of saints in western Wyoming. To them came the sad distinction of being the first Mormon settlers who buried a child in Afton; he died in 1887.
"Star Valley wasn't an unknown quantity," said Kennington. "Trappers had been here for 50 or 60 years before the Mormon colonists came in. The Lander Trail, a cutoff of the Oregon Trail, passed through here.
"In 1877, Moses Thatcher and Bishop William Preston visited this valley. It was vacant except for a lot of Shoshone willow houses. In 1878, several apostles visited the valley, and Brigham Young Jr. dedicated it by prayer as a gathering place for the saints. The name was changed from Salt River Valley to Star Valley because Moses Thatcher said it was a star among valleys."
Kennington describes himself as a lifelong historian, and a collector of stories and artifacts. Many of his stories are preserved in a book he wrote, Salt River, the First Hundred Years. His affinity for Star Valley is summed up in the book's final lines:
"We are often asked if anything historically important happened here. To many, contention and conflict make the news and then the history from the news. It is to the everlasting credit of the people of this area, both red and white, that this western Wyoming and eastern Idaho could go through all phases of frontier development, exploration, fur trade, immigrant travel, displacement of the Indians, cattle drives and settlement without more confrontations. . . . The history of Star Valley is the story of a determined and resourceful people making a home for themselves in a harsh but beautiful valley."
The Big Horn Basin is another part of Wyoming in which Latter-day Saints made significant contributions. The colonization of this area differed from other Mormon colonization efforts in that it was Wyoming's governor who requested that the Latter-day Saints come to his state. Just 10 years after Wyoming achieved statehood, Gov. DeForrest Richards visited President Lorenzo Snow, asking that a colony of Mormons be sent into the Big Horn Basin to assist in colonizing northern Wyoming.
Today, the Big Horn Basin has three stakes and 21 wards in Burlington, Cody, Meeteetse, Otto, Powell, Byron, Cowley, Lovell, Basin, Greybull, Ten Sleep, Thermopolis and Worland.
President Snow appointed Abraham O. Woodruff of the Council of the Twelve to take charge of what became the Big Horn Basin Colonization Company. The colonists' primary task was to dig a 37-mile-long canal that would be large enough to carry water to irrigate 1,200-1,500 acres of land.
"It will take a united effort to perform this gigantic task, for we are few in number," Smoot told the colonists. "I urge you to keep the Word of Wisdom, pay your tithes and offerings. Do not profane the name of the Deity. Be honest with all men. Honor the Sabbath Day, and if you do these things, this will be a land of Zion unto you and your children and children's children throughout the generations that are to come. And that you may be united, I now, as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, call each and all of you upon a mission to help build up this country, and if you will do this, the Lord will bless you forever."
Wyoming today has 51,000 members in 16 stakes.
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