A History of Pioneer Day

The first company of Mormon pioneers, led by Brigham Young, officially entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake on 24 July 1847. Young’s vanguard pioneer company consisted of 142 men, 3 women, 2 children, and 72 wagons. They traveled 1031 miles before reaching their destination. Some members of the company traveled ahead and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley as early as the July 21, 1847. They immediately began planting crops and establishing homes.[2] By the 24th of July, the entire company had arrived.[3]

On July 28, Brigham Young identified the site for the Salt Lake Temple. He had seen the completed temple many times in vision, and told the Saints that he never looked upon the spot without seeing it there.[4]

Between 1847 and 1868, when the transcontinental railroad neared completion, some 60,000 to 70,000 Latter-day Saints migrated from the United States, Canada, and Europe across the North American Great Plains to Utah and the surrounding regions.

Mormon pioneers first commemorated this new beginning in 1849. The celebration took place near the spot that Young had recently designated as the site of a future temple, the holiest place in Mormondom. The observance consisted of a procession which led Brigham Young from his home to a bowery on Temple Square to which members of the nearly twenty local LDS congregations had marched earlier that morning behind their respective bishops. Under the bowery, Young presided over a devotional full of both religious reverence and zeal. The celebration ended with a thanksgiving feast for a bountiful harvest and the blessings of a merciful God.

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