Fleeing intense religious and political hostility and persecution, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, in February 1846 and, unprepared for winter, traveled 265 agonizing miles in four months across the rolling plains of southern Iowa, where heavy spring rains turned the land into axle-deep mud and exhaustion and lack of provisions forced them to stop and winter near the Missouri River. In the spring of 1847, after resting and improving their plans, 143 men, three women, and two boys set out across Nebraska for a new Zion on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, following a rough trace made by earlier explorers, fur traders, and missionaries and beginning a western route later used by thousands of other Mormons and Forty-niners. These first pioneers established ferries, campsites, bridges, and supply depots, giving the route the name The Mormon Trail. Before formal frontier mail routes existed, wagon trains and travelers commonly exchanged letters for delivery, and on May 4, 1847, the Mormon Pioneer Company met fur traders from Fort Laramie about eight miles west of this location and made such an exchange when Charles Beaumont crossed the Platte River and offered to carry letters east to the Missouri River. John Brown and two other men later crossed the Platte to speak with the traders, and after Brown reported their advice that the grass was better on the south side, Brigham Young called a council that voted to remain on the north side until reaching Fort Laramie for the sake of those who would follow, reflecting the determination of the Latter-day Saints to create their own road west. Farther along the trail, the pioneers also left messages on scraps of paper attached to trees, posts, and buffalo skulls for later travelers, creating the famous Bulletin of the Plains.