Through much of Wyoming, the Mormon Trail used the same path as the Oregon and California Trails. Explorers and fur-trappers blazed some trails in what was to become the western United States, but it wasn’t until 1835 the Oregon Trail became a trail for emigrants as Christian missionaries traveled to Oregon. The Great Emigration of 1843 was like floodgates that opened up the Oregon Trail; there was even a wagon company of a thousand people that traversed the Oregon Trail that year. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, nearly 50,000 people used the Emigrant Trails every year. By 1869, when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed and brought the end of the era, approximately 400,000 settlers had journeyed along the Oregon, California, and Mormon Emigrant Trails. Over 60,000 of those pioneers traveled to the Great Salt Lake Valley on the Mormon Trail. It is not surprising that the wagon wheels wore ruts and a permanent path at places along the trail.

Emigrants on the Mormon Trail were different than most of the travelers on the other trails. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were organized into companies under the direction of Church leaders. Each company had captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, and captains of tens, with a president and his two counselors at their head. All who traveled in the company were under covenant to observe the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. Each company was organized to be able to take in the poor, the widows, and the fatherless, as well as families. The companies often would plant crops along the trail for other companies that would follow. Church representatives were assigned to gather supplies at “jumping off” points and along the trail, as well as provide ferries across rivers. The rate of travel on the Mormon Trail averaged 10 miles per day, as compared to 15 miles per day on the Oregon Trail, mainly because of the large contingent of families with children and even elderly. To understand the benefits of the organization in the Mormon companies one need only read the account of the Donner-Reed party as they traveled to California.