Mormon Trail in the context of "Red Desert (Wyoming)"

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, and Nevada to the west. In comparison to all the U.S. states and territories, Utah, with a population of just over three million, is the 13th-largest by area, the 30th-most populous, and the 11th-least densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two regions: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which includes the state capital, Salt Lake City, and is home to roughly two-thirds of the population; and Washington County in the southwest, which has approximately 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups, such as the ancient Puebloans, the Navajo, and the Ute. The first Europeans to arrive – in the mid-16th century – were the Spanish. Because of the region's challenging geography and harsh climate, it only became a peripheral part of New Spain (and later of Mexico). Even while it was Mexican territory, many of the Utah region's earliest European settlers were from the United States; notable among these were Mormons who were fleeing marginalization and persecution in the United States and arrived via the so-called Mormon Trail. In 1848, after the Mexican–American War, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what later became Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state: in 1896, after it agreed to outlaw polygamy, it was admitted as the 45th state.

The Southern Rocky Mountains are a major subregion of the Rocky Mountains of North America located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, the central and western portions of Colorado, the northern portion of New Mexico, and extreme eastern portions of Utah. The Southern Rocky Mountains are also commonly known as the Southern Rockies, and since the highest peaks are located in the State of Colorado, they are sometimes known as the Colorado Rockies, although many important ranges and peaks rise in the other three states. The Southern Rockies include the highest mountain ranges of the Rocky Mountains and include all 30 of the highest major peaks of the Rockies.

The Southern Rocky Mountains are generally divided from the Western Rocky Mountains by the Green River and the Colorado River below the Green River. The Southern Rockies are divided from the Central Rocky Mountains by South Pass in Wyoming and the drainage running east from the pass down the Sweetwater River and the North Platte River; and the drainage running southwest from the pass down Pacific Creek and Sandy Creek to the Green River. This divide between the Southern Rockies and the Central Rockies provided the lowest elevation traverse of the Rocky Mountain region for the historic Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail. The southern end of the Rocky Mountains are considered to be the Jemez Mountains and the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. Mountains south of here in N.M. are classified as the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains ecoregion using the EPA Ecoregions System.

The Platte River (/plæt/) is a major American river in the state of Nebraska. It is about 310 mi (500 km) long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over 1,050 miles (1,690 km). The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself is a tributary of the Mississippi River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Platte over most of its length is a broad, shallow, meandering stream with a sandy bottom and many islands—a braided stream.

The Platte is one of the most significant tributary systems in the watershed of the Missouri, draining a large portion of the central Great Plains in Nebraska and the eastern Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Wyoming. The river valley played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States, providing the route for several major emigrant trails, including the Oregon, California, Mormon and Bozeman trails. The first Europeans to see the Platte were French explorers and fur trappers about 1714; they first called it the Nebraskier (Nebraska), a transliteration of the name given by the Otoe people, meaning "flat water". This expression is very close to the French words "rivière platte" ("flat river"), the probable origin of the name Platte River.

The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 mi (2,600 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The trail has several splits and cutoffs for alternative routes around major landforms and to different destinations, with a combined length of over 5,000 mi (8,000 km).

South Pass (elevation 7,412 ft (2,259 m) and 7,550 ft (2,300 m)) is a route across the Continental Divide, in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. It lies in a broad high region, 35 miles (56 km) wide, between the nearly 14,000 ft (4,300 m) Wind River Range to the north and the over 8,500 ft (2,600 m) Oregon Buttes and arid, saline near-impassable Great Divide Basin to the south. The Pass lies in southwestern Fremont County, approximately 35 miles (56 km) SSW of Lander.

Though it approaches a mile and a half high, South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains. The passes furnish a natural crossing point of the Rockies. The historic pass became the route for emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails to the West during the 19th century. It was designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark on January 20, 1961.

Pacific Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The approximately 36-mile (58 km) long stream rises on the western side of South Pass and flows into the Little Sandy Creek near Farson, Wyoming. As the name implies, the stream starts just to the west of the Continental Divide and so is on the Pacific side of the divide. The waters from the stream eventually flow into the Pacific Ocean via the Green River and Colorado River. The stream is a notable landmark on the Oregon, California and Mormon emigration trails.

Brigham Young (/ˈbrɪɡəm/ BRIG-əm; June 1, 1801 – August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until his death in 1877. He also served as the first governor of the Utah Territory from 1851 until his resignation in 1858.

Young was born in 1801 in Vermont and raised in Upstate New York. After working as a painter and carpenter, he became a full-time LDS Church leader in 1835. Following a short period of service as a missionary, he moved to Missouri in 1838. Later that year, Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs signed the Mormon Extermination Order, and Young organized the migration of the Latter Day Saints from Missouri to Illinois, where he became an inaugural member of the Council of Fifty. In 1844, while he was traveling to gain support for Joseph Smith's presidential campaign, Smith was killed by a mob, igniting the Illinois Mormon War and triggering a succession crisis in the Latter Day Saint movement. After negotiating a ceasefire, Young was unanimously elected as the church's second president in 1847. During the Mormon exodus, Young led his followers west from Nauvoo, Illinois, via the Mormon Trail to the Salt Lake Valley. Once settled in Utah, he ordered the construction of numerous temples, including the Salt Lake Temple. He also formalized the prohibition of black men attaining priesthood and directed the Mormon Reformation. A supporter of education, Young worked to establish the learning institutions that would later become the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

Interstate 80 (I-80) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. The portion of the highway in the US state of Utah is 197.51 miles (317.86 km) long through the northern part of the state. From west to east, I-80 crosses the state line from Nevada in Tooele County and traverses the Bonneville Salt Flats—which are a part of the larger Great Salt Lake Desert. It continues alongside the Wendover Cut-off—the corridor of the former Victory Highway—US Route 40 (US-40) and the Western Pacific Railroad Feather River Route. After passing the Oquirrh Mountains, I-80 enters the Salt Lake Valley and Salt Lake County. A short portion of the freeway is concurrent with I-15 through Downtown Salt Lake City. At the Spaghetti Bowl, I-80 turns east again into the mouth of Parleys Canyon and Summit County, travels through the mountain range, and intersects the eastern end of I-84 near Echo Reservoir before turning northeast toward the Wyoming border near Evanston. I-80 was built along the corridor of the Lincoln Highway and the Mormon Trail through the Wasatch Range. The easternmost section also follows the historical routes of the first transcontinental railroad and US-30S.

Construction of the controlled-access highway began in the 1950s, and, by the late 1970s, most of the freeway across the state of Utah had been completed. The 4.5-mile-long (7.2 km) section of I-80 between State Route 68 (SR-68, Redwood Road) and Salt Lake City International Airport was the last piece of the nearly 2,900-mile-long (4,700 km) freeway to be completed. It was opened on August 22, 1986, and was about 50 miles (80 km) from the site of another cross-country milestone in Utah, the driving of the golden spike of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory Summit. Average daily traffic volumes in 2012 ranged between 6,765 vehicles using the freeway at SR-58 and 121,205 vehicles using the freeway at the Spaghetti Bowl in Downtown Salt Lake City. Throughout the state, the highway is also known as the Purple Heart Trail.