Late in 1856, the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies and the Hunt and Hodgetts Wagon Companies left Iowa City on their journey westward and, near this spot, crossed the Sweetwater River for the sixth time, giving Sixth Crossing its name. Because they left late in the year, they encountered severe winter storms and suffered from cold, rain, and snow. Barely surviving on scant rations, they were rescued by a relief party from Salt Lake City, Utah, sent by Brigham Young. With much faith in each footstep, they struggled on through thick dust, mud, and snow. The pioneer women who crossed the ocean and the plains forded streams and rivers, some covered with ice, bore children along the way, and lost and buried loved ones. They gathered anything that would burn for their fires and cooked from meager supplies. Coming with little but giving their all on the journey west, mothers, daughters, and sisters were bound together in faith and with tears of joy and sorrow, working together for one cause and one purpose as they endured one of the most tragic yet most heroic events of the pioneers going west and left a treasured legacy to their descendants.