Remembering the Latter-day Saint Pioneers During a Pandemic

The Donner Party scrabbled its way into the Salt Lake Valley on Aug. 22, 1846. That act both contributed to the group’s infamous demise and helped save the Latter-day Saint pioneers who arrived 11 months later.

The Donner-Reed Party labored 18 days hacking a 39-mile road into Emigration Canyon above the Salt Lake Valley in 1846, according to the diary of James Reed. That was time neither they nor Brigham Young’s vanguard company had to spare.