Salt Lake City History Minute -The Donner Party

Everyone is familiar with the ill-fated Donner Party, caught in the Sierra Nevadas in the hard winter of 1846-1847, many of the migrants were forced to resort to cannibalism in a bid to survive that brutal winter. What fewer know is how the Salt Lake Valley was partly responsible for that fate and how they unwittingly rescued the Mormon pioneers from disaster.

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[surferdude]

And I thought that the Donner party had been LDS pioneers. Shows what I know. Subscribed.

[donb]

They didn’t just bypass the valley, they had camps near the Jordan River and possibly near Magna where there’s a natural cavern known now as either Toronto cave, or Dead man’s cave.