The Rocky Mountains are presented as the westward destination of the Latter-day Saints’ exodus from Nauvoo and the geographic horizon toward which their migration proceeded. In the account, the mountainward journey links the disclosure of a religious secret during flight from Illinois to the community’s eventual settlement in the Salt Lake Valley.

Destination of the Exodus

The first wagon trains left Nauvoo in February 1846. After crossing the Mississippi River, the emigrants regrouped at Sugar Creek, Iowa, before continuing their trek to the Rocky Mountains. The range thus enters the narrative not through a description of its terrain, but as the stated destination of a people forced to leave their earlier home.

A Secret Shared on the Way West

At Sugar Creek, nine miles beyond the western bank of the Mississippi, the Saints paused in a snowbound camp. There, plural marriage—known to only a handful of the emigrants and already practiced by their leaders—was shared openly with the rank and file for the first time. The account places this disclosure on the route toward the Rocky Mountains, making the migration more than a change of location: it also marks a change in what the departing community knew about its leaders’ religious practice.

Settlement and Narrative Significance

The westward journey culminated in the arrival of the main company in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. The account describes this as the end of the seventeen-year journey from Palmyra and the moment the Saints had found a home. The Rocky Mountains therefore function as a destination in the migration story, connecting the departure from Nauvoo, the disclosure at Sugar Creek, and the community’s eventual establishment in the valley. The hardships of the preceding emigration, alongside earlier violence in Missouri and Illinois, are also presented as having strengthened the arriving Saints’ loyalty to their leader, Brigham Young.