Mormon Country Turquoise and shimmering desert salt flats

and shimmering desert salt flats

With sculpted sand dunes

shown with mileage markers and labeled according to designated use

roads were constructed

Not only have Young’s biographers ignored or minimized this tragic and preventable event

Mormon Country Turquoise and shimmering desert salt flatsWhere others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their lovely Deseret, a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green. Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed