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Mormons Seek to Buy National Historic Site
Legislation Would Force Sale of 'Hallowed' Land to Church
 Listen to Howard Berkes' report.
A replica of a Mormon handcart, loaded with belongings, on display inside the Mormon Handcart Visitor's Center near Martin's Cove, Wyoming.
Photo: John Jolley, The Grassroots Advocate
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 "The Handcart Song"
Margaret Y. Boyle, 96, performed "The Handcart Song" celebrating the handcart treks of Mormon pioneers for folk archivist Lester Hubbard in 1951. The song appears on The New Beehive Songster, Volume One, published by the University of Utah Press and is used with the permission of producer Hal Cannon.
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The Mormon Pioneer Trail
• Beginning in 1838, thousands of Mormons fleeing persecution in Missouri settled along the Mississippi River in Illinois -- an area they named Nauvoo.
• After the church's founder Joseph Smith was killed by an angry mob in 1844, the Mormons planned a mass exodus west.
• The trail from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah was approximately 1,300 miles long.
• Beginning in 1846, 70,000 Mormon followers followed the trail to Utah.
Source: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
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"Many of them lost their lives, lost loved ones, forsook every thing they had in order to make that trek."
Lloyd Larsen, leader of Mormon congregations in Lander and Riverton, Wyoming
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Martin's Cove, Wyoming, after a recent winter storm, much as it appeared to Mormon pioneers who sought refuge here in 1856.
Photo: Riverton Wyoming Stake, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
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"This has not been done before. We have not sold off a national historically registered site. So if we do that once, how can you deny that to another party?"
Barbara Dobos, a retired Wyoming schoolteacher and legislator
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May 16, 2002 -- A century and a half ago, thousands of Mormon converts -- poor immigrants from Europe -- pulled two-wheeled handcarts crammed with belongings across 1,300 miles of mountains and plains toward Utah.
In 1856, an autumn blizzard hit the Martin handcart party of 1,000 people about 60 miles south of Casper, Wyoming. The Martin party sought shelter behind a brush-covered sand dune at the base of a squat granite mountain. As many as 150 people died in and near a place that became known as Martin's Cove.
Martin's Cove is on the National Register of Historic Places and is owned by the federal government. But seven members of the U.S. Congress who are also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have co-sponsored a bill that would force the federal government to sell Martin's Cove to their church. Thursday on Capitol Hill, a congressional hearing will focus on the bill. For Morning Edition, NPR's Howard Berkes reports.
The Mormon converts who traveled the Mormon Pioneer Trail longed "to be with other members of their faith and were willing to do whatever it took to get there," says Lloyd Larsen, who heads Mormon congregations in Lander and Riverton, Wyoming. "Many of them lost their lives, lost loved ones, forsook every thing they had in order to make that trek."
Today, church members regard the site as hallowed ground; in the past five years, an estimated 250,000 people have retraced the Mormon pioneers' footsteps, some pulling replica handcarts up the treeless gravel trail to Martin's Cove.
The church already owns the private land nearby, where a handcart corral and visitor's center sit. But the cove itself is public land. The church offered a land trade, which the federal government rejected. So Mormon officials turned to those seven church members in Congress, who drafted a bill that would force the government to sell the land to the church.
John Jolley, a public lands activist in Wyoming, says he has no problem with the Mormons establishing a place "for their converts and people to come to, to visit and to go through their religious experience... But I don’t want them to take my public lands, and do it with my public lands." He calls the Mormon experience "one very small thing" in the history of the area; near Martin's Cove, the Mormon Trail converges with the Oregon, California and Pony Express Trails, and pioneers of all kinds struggled and died in the vicinity.
Critics cite experiences elsewhere to raise concerns about Mormon control at Martin's Cove. Those worried about maintaining public access mention Salt Lake City's sale of a public street to the church -- a street where behavior offensive to Mormons can now result in eviction or arrest.
Those worried about maintaining historical accuracy point to a church-owned historic site in Utah that honors the victims of a wagon train massacre -- without mentioning the Mormon militia that did much of the killing. Others are concerned that private ownership would eliminate the existing federal oversight of environmental and historic preservation. For their part, Mormon officials insist that if they gain control of the Martin's Cove site, they'll continue public access, but will rigorously protect what they consider sacred ground.
Barbara Dobos, a retired Wyoming schoolteacher and legislator, expresses another, practical concern: "This has not been done before. We have not sold off a national historically registered site. So if we do that once, how can you deny that to another party?" Some Indian tribes already are promising to seek sacred native lands now owned by the government, if Martin's Cove is sold to the Mormons.
Martin's Cove appears today much as it did in 1856. Then, survivors were saved by rescue parties sent out by the Mormon brethren in Salt Lake City. "This time," says NPR's Berkes, "it's not clear the brethren will prevail. Wyoming's lone member of the House, non-Mormon Republican Barbara Cubin, says she now opposes the Martin's Cove bill, which could make her non-Mormon colleagues reluctant to support it."
Other Resources
• The Mormon Pioneer Trail story, complete with maps of the journey and driving directions to the church's handcart visitor's center, on the Web site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
• The history of the Martin Handcart Company, featuring photos of the route and a detailed map of the area under consideration.
• Press release on the May 16, 2002 hearing in Washington, D.C. about the proposed sale of Martin's Cove from Congressman James V. Hansen (R-Utah), chairman of the House Resources Committee.
• The Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club is hoping to rally support against the sale.
• Web site for a PBS documentary on the Mormon Trail exodus, Trail of Hope.
• The Oregon-California Trails Association is dedicated to the stories and routes of pioneers headed west.
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