Streets in Salt Lake City (above) were
laid out according to an ideal plan for the City of Zion, prepared by
Joseph Smith in 1833. Though only two years old, the town was
nourishing in 1849; saplings had been planted; plentiful water brought
from the mountains; gardens were everywhere. It was a pleasant place to
refit and consider the future.
Some
of the gold-seekers were foolish enough to follow Hastings' Road from
Salt Lake City across the Salt Desert, past the ox-skeletons and ruined
wagons left by the Donner group in 1846. Ninety miles of desert—and
then by a pass as rugged as that shown below they came down on the parched valley of the Humboldt, with Carson Desert still to cross!
