A Settlement in California
On February 23, 1851, Brigham Young commissioned Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich to lead a company to Southern California to establish a settlement. Though the dream of the proposed State of Deseret was not to be, Young was still determined to build a chain of settlements to the Pacific coast. He recognized that a link to the coast could provide the Latter-day Saints with an important foothold for trade and commerce as well as a resting place for new converts emigrating via the Pacific.
Brigham Young instructed Lyman and Rich to look for future settlement locations on their journey between southern Utah, and southern California. He also directed that the California settlement should focus on producing warm climate crops such as cotton, sugar, grapes, and olives.
By June 1851, the company reached a grove of sycamore trees on the outskirts of the San Bernardino Valley. Before the settlers left Utah, Lyman and Rich had a tentative offer in place to purchase a ranch from a man named Isaac Williams. However, by the time the wagon train arrived, Williams had changed his mind and decided not to sell. The company scrambled to find a new location. After several weeks they finalized a deal to purchase the San Bernardino Rancho from the Lugo family.
SAN BERNARDINO RANCH
The first thing the settlers built was a fort on their newly purchased land. They lived in these cramped quarters for the first two years in San Bernardino due to fears from ongoing fighting between Anglo-Americans and a confederation of multiple Indigenous tribes in Southern California. They planted and worked fields by day and safeguarded themselves in the fort each night. By 1853, the settlers began to spread out and create a permanent community.
THE “MORMON ROAD”
Brigham Young could now begin to fill in his road to the Pacific with settlements to link San Bernardino with the newly established communities of Cedar City and Parowan in southern Utah. Under Young’s direction, Latter-day Saints improved the southern route of the California Trail, which soon gained the nickname of the “Mormon Road.” Modern day Interstate 15 follows the general path of Young’s highway to the Pacific.
Brigham Young planned for these settlements to fulfill multiple purposes. Not only would they provide safe resting places along the trade route, but many of them would serve as headquarters for missionaries called to preach to local Paiute and Mojave people.
THE SAN PEDRO BAY
San Pedro Bay is an inlet on the Pacific Ocean coast of southern California in the United States. It is the site of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, which together forms the fifth-busiest port facility in the world. Brigham Young’s vision to include San Pedro Bay as a part of the State of Deseret speaks volumes about his vision for the Latter-day Saints. During the 1850’s and 1860’s, converts from all over the world flowed in through this port and followed the “Mormon Road” up to Salt Lake City. The plan focused specifically on converts emigrating from the South Pacific Islands and Australia more easily to the American West. Some of these immigrants, including the Syphus family, ended up settling in towns such as Panaca and other southern Nevada and Utah communities.