Personal interest · American history
Mormon Pioneer Trek to the Salt Lake Valley
About 56,000 Latter-day Saints walked and rode the 1,300 miles from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley between 1846 and 1869, before the transcontinental railroad finished the route for them. They made 14–20 miles on a good day. This is who they were, what the journey cost, and how the valley filled.
Who made the trek
Age when they travelled. Those under 25 account for 58% of everyone on the trail.
What took them
Of deaths with a recorded cause, cholera alone accounts for more than half.
“Other” spans dysentery and exposure down to the rare and grim — stampeded, eaten by wolves, murdered.
Men and women died at almost the same rate
Who was most at risk
Mortality runs as a U — teenagers were safest at 1.45%, infants lost 1 in 8, and risk climbed to 1 in 3 for the few who were 80 or older.
Which company you joined
Company mattered more than method. Most of the 307 companies came through nearly untouched — a handful carried almost all of the loss.
Pick a travel company:
All 307 companies, by how many they lost
- No deaths111
- Up to 5%134
- 5–10%45
- Over 10%17
Source: Bashore & Tolley, “Mortality on the Mormon Trail, 1847–1868,” BYU Studies 53:4 →
How the valley filled
Running total of arrivals. By the time the railroad arrived in 1869, 47,352 had been counted into the valley.
Mortality, gender, and company-type rates are the published figures from Bashore, Tolley & the BYU Pioneer Mortality Team, “Mortality on the Mormon Trail, 1847–1868” (BYU Studies 53:4) — 56,042 pioneers, 1,910 deaths. The age histogram and cause-of-death shares are reconstructed from the original viz; the annual-arrivals split is reconstructed to match its cumulative total (47,352) and 1852 peak. Original on Tableau →