CHAPTER 4
MORMON EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION Brigham Young envisioned a vast Mormon empire called the State of Deseret. The proposed state would have covered some 265)000 square miles of deserts) mountains) valleys) and plateaus from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevadas) the Great Basin to the Gila River in Arizona) and southwest to the Pacific Ocean port of San Diego. Young believed a port on the Pacific was essential to allow Latter-day Saint immigrants to approach from the west instead of by the laborious overland route. He also intended to establish a corridor of communities between the Salt Lake Valley and southern California. The communities of early Iron County were among the first established along this ÂŤMormon corridor.Âť Captain Jefferson Hunt traversed the route from Great Salt Lake City to the Little Salt Lake and west on the Spanish Trail to California at least once a year between 1847 and 1851) and he may have told Brigham Young of the vast field of iron ore near the Little Salt Lake. The deposit is noted in the journal of Addison Pratt) who was with Jefferson Hunt in 1849 as Hunt guided a company of missionaries and California-bound gold miners. Pratt described Little Salt Lake 41
