Trivia fact for the day: the Mormon church operated a newspaper, the St. Louis Luminary, from November 1854 to December 1855. The periodical served the large community of transient Latter-day Saints, many of whom stopped in St Louis to replenish their strength (and funds) after the first leg of their journey to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1855, the paper commented, “There is probably no city in the world where Latter-day Saints are more respected, and where they may sooner obtain an outfit for Utah. … The hand of the Lord is in these things.”
If you’re intrigued, and you live in the St Louis area, you can learn more about the early history of Mormons in St Louis at the first meeting of the St Louis Mormon Historical Society. The event will take place tomorrow night, Friday, October 30, at 7:00 pm at The Lodge Des Peres. It promises to be an interesting evening, and I’m hoping to attend myself.
That sounds really interesting, Rosalynde. I wish we were still living there so I could hear it. My husband’s great-great-great (I have no idea how many greats) joined the church in St. Louis during that time period (after immigrating from Germany).
While on my mission, for a brief time I lived right across the street from a plaque (on the outside of a building in downtown that was then a health center, only a few blocks from the Arch) that marked the first LDS church meeting location in St. Louis. Stanley Kimball was instrumental in getting such landmarks and memorials in place, and often gave firesides on our history in the area. I’ve no doubt he’d be thrilled to know that this work continues.
We’ve had a “New York LDS Hisory Committee” for more than 10 years now (although the website isn’t always up-to-date). It is clearly worth the effort, and for us it has resulted in the publication of a book, City Saints: Mormons in the New York Metropolis
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I think local history often is overlooked, and this is even more true in Mormonism, where it often seems like LDS history stops at 1890.