In 1849, a large group deserted wagon train leader Jefferson Hunt here and headed west toward present-day Enterprise, Utah, beginning a trek that became part of the story of the Death Valley 49ers. Hunt, with a small group, led only seven wagons south on the Spanish Trail. Although he was an experienced frontiersman and the only person in the party who had been to California, most of the train lost confidence in him after he unsuccessfully tried to find a shortcut across the Escalante Desert. Hunt had earlier served as senior Mormon officer in the Mormon Battalion on its journey from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to San Diego, California, during the Mexican War. After mustering out, he rejoined the Mormon pioneers in Great Salt Lake City in October 1847, then persuaded church authorities to send him to California that winter by way of the Old Spanish Trail to buy cattle, horses, fruit trees, seeds, and other supplies for future Mormon immigrants to Utah. He returned from southern California with horses and cattle in February 1848. A second party, mostly former Mormon Battalion members who had re-enlisted and wintered in southern California, returned in April 1848 with Orrin Porter Rockwell and a wagon of seeds and supplies, leaving the Spanish Trail near present-day Newcastle and cutting north across the Escalante Desert to Beaver Creek. After hearing of this shortcut, Hunt tried to find it at Beaver Creek while leading the 49ers south in 1849, but he failed, and the wagon train spent a very dry week on the Escalante Desert. His overconfident error brought general irritation and caused most of the wagon train to abandon him, though many of those who left later followed or rejoined him and reached San Bernardino, California.