- The Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley 178 years ago this week.
- Brigham Young led 148 pioneers in the Vanguard Company and 143 of them were men in that group.
- Halfway into the guys trip journey, Brigham Young had seen enough and gave them a tongue lashing.
SALT LAKE CITY — One hundred and seventy-eight years ago this coming week they started rolling in, the first non-Indians to enter the Salt Lake Valley and not keep going.
Much has been written about the 148 souls who made that historic 111-day, 1,031-mile trek from Winter Quarters (now Omaha, Nebraska) to the shores of the Great Salt Lake, arriving in July of 1847. Their journals have been all but canonized. Their names forever emblazoned on the Brigham Young statue at the top of Main Street.
But one element of the vaunted Vanguard Company is often lost in the telling…