The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 13
605 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Trek South: How the Mormons Went to Mexico
bordered by such steep and treacherous embankments that both
men and animals found it nearly impossible to approach the stream."
Yet, in wetter months, the Casas Grandes would flood and threaten
travellers for miles along its entire length. The following description,
taken from the diary of Winslow Farr, illustrates what must have
been common for Mormons travelling this same road in the rainy
season:
It rained nearly every day & the river was Very high & the water was
spread out for miles we tipped out or over in to the river & broke up
some of our boxes & Dishes & got some things & hitched on to the waggon
& pulled it right side up My feet slipped & fell under the Wheel & got
my thigh hurt me very Much we finelly got reloaded & started again had
very heavy roads arrived at Diaz all well.0
Even after most of the colonies had become well established set-
tlements, transportation in Mexico, especially to and from the Mor-
mon villages in the Sierra Madre, remained a genuine trial. When,
in i goo, Joseph Fielding Smith, who as a boy had walked most of the
way from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the Salt Lake Valley, visited
the different Mexican settlements, he was required to ride by horse-
back and wagon over what he considered "the roughest, rockiest
nearest impassable mountain passes" he had ever met."
In spite of the difficulties confronting settlers in the early years of
their Mexican venture, Mormon movement south across the border
continued through the 1890's and beyond the turn of the century."
The Mormons ultimately accounted for eight communities and more
than four thousand colonists in the two provinces of Chihuahua and
Sonora.0" It was a long difficult journey that most of them endured
"Alfred F. Bandelier, Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the South-
western United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from z88o to 1885, vols. III and IV
in Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America (5 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 189o-
I892), IV, 539.
O"Diary of Winslow Farr 1856-1899" (typescript, BYU), 75.
e1Quoted from J. F. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith (Salt Lake City, 1938), 311-312.
""Journal of Anthony W. Ivins" (microfilm of original, unpaginated manuscript, Henry
E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California), July 15, and November
23, 19oo; "Diary of Winslow Farr," 137, 231; "Journal History of the Church," March 13,
1899.
"3Jenson, "Juarez Stake" and "Juarez Stake Wards." One Mexican authority claimed
the Mormon population had mounted to 4,200oo residents as early as 1908. Enrique C.
Creel, El estado de Chihuahua su historia, geografia y riquezas naturales (M6xico, 1928),
61. The "plateau" colonies of Chihuahua were Judrez, Dublan, and Diaz. Three smaller
communities-Pacheco, Garcia, and Chuichupa-were located in the Sierra Madre moun-
tains. Oaxaca and Morelos were the two Sonoran settlements. See Romney, The Mormon
Colonies in Mexico, 74-127. See also the excellent description contained in "Journal
History of the Church," April 30, 1902.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970, periodical, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117147/m1/29/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.