Mormons!

In July 2001, after two weeks of research at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Archives in California, I drove up Route 1 to Sacramento to start back home, then in Minnesota. From Sacramento, I drove east on interstate 80, through Nevada to Wyoming. Recalling the words of a good friend, that the only good thing to come out of Nebraska is I-80, I decided I would prefer to drive I-90 through South Dakota rather than I-80 through Nebraska (this is a difference?), so I looked for some way to get from I-80 to I-90 in Wyoming. Easy enough. Take U.S. 287 north at Rawlins, veer off on WY 220 at Muddy Gap to Casper, then take I-25 up to I-90. Simple.

But wait, on WY 220, what to my wondering historian's eyes should appear? The Mormon Pushcart Museum?!!? What? MUST STOP!

Did you know that some crazy Mormons moved from St. Louis to Salt Lake City before the Civil War using PUSHCARTS?!!? I did not. Religious zeal leads humans to do some crazy stuff.

One year, a group got a late start from St. Louis. Then, in Wyoming, an early snow storm hit. Luckily, a party of Mormons who were ahead of them knew they were coming. Still, they got trapped in the snow in Wyoming, just east of Muddy Gap. There is now a museum near the spot of their trials dedicated to their story. Clean living Mormons never die, so if you go to the Mormon Pushcart Museum, you'll likely get your very own retired Mormon as a docent.

So a group of Mormons, traveling by pushcart, were stranded in a snow storm in what is now Wyoming. Sucks to be them. So – this is the story my personal, retired, Mormon docent told me – as it happened, a hunter nearby had just killed a buffalo, then passed out. So god appeared to him in a dream. He woke up – then fell asleep again! So sayeth the Mormon docent. Silly me for thinking that, if god wakes your ass up, you stay awake. What do I know? So god woke him up again and informed him of the presence of stranded Mormons nearby. The hunter took pity and supplied the stranded Mormons with buffalo meat until rescuers arrived.

A rancher has donated the land on which the Mormons have built a small, tidy, clapboard building that houses their terribly quaint museum. There is also a second building that offers a glimpse of life in the old west. They also have some pushcarts so you can try it for yourself. Of course, you won't have all of your worldly possessions in your pushcart, and you won't have to push it to Salt Lake City, but still. I highly recommend a visit.