Sunday and Winter Quarters

was the perfect place to start.  Winter Quarters was one of the settlements started by the Saints to live in during the first winter of 1846.  This area became home for about 4000 people in cabins, dugouts, and shanties. Nearby Kanesville (Council Bluffs) became the home for over 2500 Saints living in make-do settlers along the banks of the Missouri River. Hundreds of others were in other communities within a 40 mile radius.  It was a terrible winter and many died here.

It is only fitting that a beautiful temple now sit on this site and shares the holy ground with a cemetery.  I don't think there is another LDS temple with that distinction.

These are not gravestones from the Pioneer time but this location contined to be used long after the Saints had left.

 Outside the cemetery gates, a pioneer statue---

 In front of the Visitors Center---

This is a sample of what the Saints were told to bring in their wagons for the trip west.

This is a sample of the odometer that William Clayton (I think) along with Orson Pratt and Milo Harmon developed to measure their mileage each day.  The Mormon Pioneers tended to travel around 10 miles a day slower than the pioneers on the Oregon and California trails.  This was due in part because of the building they did along the way but mainly because of the large number of women and children and elderly people who traveled in the Mormon camps.

Okay, these are actual stuffed oxen--and they are huge!!!

 Back in the cemetery, this is a tribute to those who died during the stay in Winter Quarters.

A view of the temple from the cemetery---

 Some of the names listed of those confirmed to have been buried here or nearby.

 Our last look as we headed back out on the trail......