Answer: In 1844, reeling from the murder of their founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, and facing continued mob violence in their settlement in Illinois, thousands of Latter Day Saints (better known as Mormons) threw their support behind a new leader, Brigham Young. Two years later, Young led the Mormons on their great trek westward through the wilderness some 1,300 miles to the Rocky Mountains—a rite of passage they saw as necessary in order to find their promised land.
Young, and 148 Mormons, crossed into the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. For the next two decades, wagon trains bearing thousands of Mormon immigrants followed Young’s westward trail. By 1896, when Utah was granted statehood, the church had more than 250,000 members, most living in Utah. Today, according to official LDS statistics, Utah is home to more than 2 million Mormons, or about one-third of the total number of Mormons in the United States.
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