A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission (Studies in Latter-Day Saint History)

In 1855, LDS Church President Brigham Young declared that “Iron we need and iron we must have.” The mid-nineteenth century Mormon pioneers of Utah depended on the metal, using it in the manufacture of stoves, plows, sawmill bearings, even nails. Shipping iron from St. Louis was expensive, and Young envisioned a regional iron works that would meet the community’s needs and make the Mormon Zion self-sufficient.

The LDS Iron Mission was established in April of 1850 in southern Utah and, for the next decade, this colony of hard-working Saints tested a variety of smelting techniques, yielding objects such as pots, crank shafts, and bells. Despite sustained, even heroic, efforts, the iron missionaries did not succeed. Nature itself worked against them. Droughts, floods, and inferior raw materials challenged them at every turn. The iron works closed in 1858, but its legacy remains today in townships that have survived for over 150 years. A Trial Furnace chronicles the lives of the people who discovered an inner strength and resilience more durable than the iron they went south to find.

Distributed for BYU Studies.