Mountain Meadows landmark plan aims to heal, unite

The LDS Church will seek a National Historic Landmark designation for the property where 120 men, women and children were massacred in 1857 by local LDS leaders and members in the Cedar City area.

Elder Marlin K. Jensen, historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told leaders of the victims' descendants Friday in Carrollton, Ark., that the church will cooperate with them in seeking that designation for property it owns in southwest Utah where the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred.

"It's a dream come true," said Harley Fancher, board member of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, who was hosting a dinner Friday in Arkansas for all those involved in the meeting.

"We're all pretty happy. Everyone's come together, and we've gotten on the same page," added Phil Bolinger, president of the foundation. He said Elder Jensen and other LDS representatives at the meeting are "very passionate about this. We believe in their hearts they want to do what makes the victims' families happy, and that makes it easier.

"The church could send lots of different people to deal with us, but I think these four that came have also helped make a difference personally. They have feelings in their hearts to make this thing right," Bolinger said. "There's no way of ever fixing it, but they obviously want to try to give as much as they can toward righting this wrong."

Elder Jensen — the first LDS general authority to meet with the descendants in Arkansas — told the Deseret Morning News he found himself "quite emotional today. When you put a human face on this and see really good people here, and you realize if this had happened to your ancestors, maybe through the years we could have done better than we have, for sure.

"But we're doing it now. We can't change the past, but we can live in the present and plan for a better future. I think that's what we did today."

Late last year, leaders of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, along with the Mountain Meadows Association and the Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants, unanimously asked for the church's help in securing landmark status for the site. Previously, they were divided about how they wanted to see the site preserved.

The designation would bring "a national focus and establishes that site as one that has national significance," Elder Jensen said. "It helps ensure it will always be held as a sacred spot, and people there will be properly remembered and memorialized."