Abstract

The Latter-day Saints were good colonizers, possibly because they were repeatedly forced by persecution to seek new homes in the wilderness. Having established themselves in Salt Lake Valley (1847), they began almost immediately to expand their domain. Their Prophet, Brigham Young, sent groups of Mormons to colonize the surrounding valleys, and within a few years there were many Mormon settlements beyond the bounds of Salt Lake Valley. Bear Lake Valley in southeastern Idaho and northern Utah was one of these early settlements.

Star Valley--thus named by Moses Thatcher, an Apostle in the Church who thought it was a "star among valleys"--lay in the territory of Wyoming some sixty miles beyond the Bear Lake Valley. Because of its extreme isolation it was slow to attract permanent settlers, although it was used for sumner pasture by the Bear Lake people and it was traversed by many Oregon immigrants who followed the Lander Cut-off.

Degree

College and Department

Religious Education; Church History and Doctrine

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