Whichever route the emigrants chose, they found the journey across the continent slow, fatiguing and full of hardship. Averaging only about 10 or 15 miles a day — enduring heat, dust, wind, sand, mud and sometimes snow — the pioneers rarely reached their destination in less than three months. Accidents, sickness and death took a regular toll as was evident from the emigrant graves, bones of oxen, discarded household goods and broken wagons that littered the overland trails. One of the worst disasters befell the California-bound Donner party in 1846. Poorly equipped and ill-advised, they became trapped by snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Many died of starvation and the survivors resorted to cannibalism before they were finally rescued.

Yet despite the difficulty and hardship, the emigrants kept coming, motivated by many things. For the Mormons; it was to escape religious persecution and build a “community of Saints” in the great Salt Lake Valley. For others, it was to farm the fertile valleys of California and Oregon or strike it rich in fields of gold. Some came for freedom and adventure or to escape the past. But in one way or another they all came for the same thing — the promise of a better life.