In the 1990s, some researchers began expressing the opinion that the historical sources either might not or do not support Rock Creek Hollow as the site of the Willie company’s camp and grave (see pages 12–13). These researchers submit that the site was instead four miles beyond Rock Creek Hollow, near the confluence of Willow Creek and the Sweetwater River. The alternate site is also four miles off the emigrant trail. This article examines the interpretations that place the Willie company’s camp and grave at both of these locations.

High on the plains of what is today central Wyoming, the Willie handcart company suffered two devastating setbacks on October 19, 1856. Members of the company were already worn down from pulling handcarts more than a thousand miles from Iowa City. They were also weak from having reduced their flour rations twice in the previous two weeks, trying to stretch their scanty supply until relief wagons from Salt Lake City could reach them. Despite rationing, however, they couldn’t stretch their flour far enough. On October 19, it was gone—while they were still nearly three hundred miles from Salt Lake City. Compounding this crisis, the season’s first winter storm blasted them late that morning. Starvation, exposure, and the sixteen miles they traveled that day tried them severely and chilled the last glimmer of life out of four of them.

Grinding hunger tormented the Willie company for the next two days. At the same time, a relentless storm lashed the people with winds and mired them in about a foot of snow. Threadbare clothing and bedding afforded meager protection against the elements. “The camp was hungry[,] naked[,] and cold,” wrote Joseph Elder.2 One of the company’s subcaptains, William Woodward, recorded: “It was a sorry sight, over 400 people with handcarts, short of bedding, & to sleep on the cold ground. One thought is enough for a lifetime.”3 Five more people died during those two days.

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Link to the article provided with permission from the Ensign Peak Foundation (formerly Mormon Historic Sites Foundation) and Latter-day Saint Historical Studies (formerly Mormon Historical Studies).

Cover art for this issue is Redick Allred in Stationed at South Pass. Courtesy Julie Rogers.