Mormon Road

[7] Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail in the Western United States, was a seasonal wagon road pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of Spanish explorers and the Old Spanish Trail across southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert of California to Los Angeles in 1847.

From 1855, it became a military and commercial wagon route between California and Utah, called the Los Angeles – Salt Lake Road.

The wagon road later called the "Mormon Road" was pioneered by a Mormon party with pack horses, led by Jefferson Hunt, intent on obtaining supplies for the struggling, newly founded Salt Lake City, traveling to and from Southern California in the fall and winter of 1847–1848.

Following Hunt's route back to Utah in 1848 were discharged veterans of the Mormon Battalion, taking the first wagons over the old pack trail.

This change was made with the major alteration from the new Beaver River crossing to Muley Point to shorten the route and avoid a difficult section of 6 miles (9.7 km) up California Hollow and over a steep mountain ridge in the Black Mountains, better suited to the Old Spanish Trail mule trains than wagons.

The new route passed through more wagon-friendly terrain in Nevershine Hollow and over Beaver Ridge into the canyon of Fremont Wash where it rejoined the original road.

As the Mormons began to settle the area from 1858, they opened stations at Washington and Fort Harmony to provide for feed and provisions to passing freighters for trade goods or cash.

The northern Mojave Desert region of California, southern Nevada, and northwestern Arizona still used the road until the Salt Lake Route was built through them in 1903–1905.