In April 1855, Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, called thirty men from the recently settled towns of Utah to serve a mission at the Las Vegas Springs, where verdant meadows watered by the springs had been seasonally inhabited by the Paiute Indians for centuries and where the water and meadows made Las Vegas an important stop on the Spanish Trail, called the Mormon Road after 1848. He directed the missionaries to become self-sufficient, to provide a place of rest and security for travelers between California and Salt Lake City, and to teach the Indians the gospel of Jesus Christ. They arrived in June 1855, and the mission, intended to be permanent, became the first Anglo-American settlement in Las Vegas Valley. By the end of that summer, irrigated gardens were producing fresh vegetables and grains, a new fort was under construction, and cooperation and mutual learning were developing with the native inhabitants. The missionaries also discovered lead ore in nearby mountains, and although more missionaries were sent to smelt the complex ore in large quantities, the effort failed. On 23 February 1857, church leaders ordered the mission disbanded, and the settlers returned to Utah after establishing an early legacy of faith, devotion, and service in a hostile environment.