The Road to Zion ~ Echo Canyon, Utah, USA
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 40° 59.386 W 111° 24.162
12T E 466127 N 4537699
This Interpretive Sign about the Mormon Migration to Salt Lake City is located in the Echo Canyon Eastbound Rest Area just east of the junction of Interstate 80 with Interstate 84 in Utah.
Waymark Code: WMG85E
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 01/27/2013
Views: 4
The Road to Zion
From the late 1840s through 1860s an exodus of more than 70,000 Mormons passed by here on their way to their "New Zion" in Utah. Starting from Nauvoo, Illinois in February 1846, the first group of at least 13,000 Mormons crossed into Iowa to escape religious persecution, then spent the next winter in the area of present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1847, Brigham Young led an advance party of 143 men, 2 women, and 3 children along the Platte River. At Fort Bridger, Wyoming they departed from the Oregon Trail to head southwest to the Great Salt Lake. Thousands of other Mormons soon followed. Today, a marked 1,624-mile auto tour route closely parallels their historic trek.
[Second Sign]
Echo Canyon
Historic Corridor
Modern roads and highways often follow historic transportation corridors. In the mid 1800s, the California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express Trails all passed through this canyon. Today, Interstate 80 in Echo Canyon follows the same historic route.
The Canyon Remembers
Sounds of travelers have lingered between these red canyon walls for hundreds of years. Sometimes, if you listen closely, through the din of today's auto and truck traffic you may hear the echoes of our past:
· the scraping of native Ute and Shoshone travois on the river gravel,
· the crunch of fur trapper's footsteps in the snow,
· the whinnying, braying, and bellowing of horses, mules, and oxen,
· the crack of a teamster's whip,
· the creaking of wagons and stagecoaches,
· and the chugging, hissing, and clickity-clack of a steam locomotive on rails.