Hundreds celebrate handcart milestone

KEARNEY, Neb. — In this Midwestern town where the Mormon, Oregon and California pioneer trails converge, hundreds of celebrators from at least 18 states gathered Friday to observe the sesquicentennial of LDS handcart pioneers.

First embarking from Iowa City, Iowa, in June 1856, handcart brigades were an experiment by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a faster, cheaper means of overland travel for bringing church converts west to Utah. Eight of the 10 handcart companies that came west between 1856 and 1860 were successful, but the two most well-known — the Martin and Willie companies — are famous for the suffering and death that beset them on the high plains of Wyoming in October and November 1856.

Merging with the original 1847 Mormon Trail by the time they reached Florence, Neb., all 10 of the handcart companies came through Kearney.

"I can't even describe what this event means," said organizer Ronnie O'Brien, "not only to those who are coming, but to us here to be able to have those people here to celebrate this very important year in the history of all the trails. Most of the people didn't know this history that we're talking about here, in the Kearney area. It's done a lot for our local history."

O'Brien, who is not LDS, is program director of the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, a unique visitor attraction that spans I-80 in Kearney and features dioramas and recorded narration telling the story of the Mormon, Oregon, California and Pony Express trails.

Part of the festivities was a program to dedicate the last of a dozen wayside interpretive signs put up by the National Park Service to mark events along the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail in Nebraska from the Missouri River to the Scotts Bluff area. The sign at Kearney near the archway commemorates the first sighting of buffalo by Brigham Young's original 1847 company of Mormon pioneers.

Scores of LDS youths from throughout Nebraska and parts of Kansas and South Dakota were on hand for the celebration, where they were taught the Virginia Reel square dance, then departed on a one-mile handcart trek led by Paul Willie, an LDS stake president from Mendon, Cache County, who is descended from Capt. James Willie, leader of one of the ill-fated handcart companies.

The celebration continues today with a five-mile handcart trek, films, lectures, entertainment, storytelling, and living-history exhibits.

Another handcart sesquicentennial observance will occur next weekend in Iowa City, the point from which the first handcarts embarked, 150 years ago to the day when the celebration will be held. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley is scheduled to speak at a June 11 evening devotional from Iowa City, which will be televised locally in Utah.

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E-mail: rscott@desnews.com