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Some years ago, the renowned western historian Wallace Stegner wrote this:
"If courage and endurance make a story, if human kindness and helpfulness and brotherly love in the midst of raw horror are worth recording, this half-forgotten episode of the Mormon migration is one of the great tales of the West and of America."
He was referring to those compelling events that took place in the mountains of Wyoming this time of year exactly 150 years ago. On this day, October 20, 1856, high human drama unfolded at the sixth crossing of the Sweetwater River.
The suffering immigrants of the Willie Handcart Company awoke to four-inches of snow on the ground, and it continued to snow all day. They consumed the last of what little food they had and hunkered down, desperately hoping and praying for rescue - their condition essentially hopeless!
Relief came the following day as a rescue party sent two-weeks before from Salt Lake City reached the distressed immigrants - 14 wagons with flour, onions and some clothing. The remarkable, inspirational rescue of the 1856 handcart immigrants was underway.
In KSL's view, the handcart saga with its many enduring lessons should no longer be "half-forgotten" as Wallace Stegner wrote, but should become more widely recounted, indeed, as "one of the great tales" in the nation's history, as it undeniably is.
