OMAHA -- A Nebraska cemetery where hundreds of Mormon pioneers are buried has been purchased from Omaha City by the LDS Church.
The sales price? One dollar.More than 600 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died during the years 1846-47 while camped at Winter Quarters in Florence, Neb., which is now part of Omaha. About half were children.
They were buried in a makeshift cemetery about a half-mile west of Winter Quarters.
"It's a very sacred place," said Elder Truman Clawson, director of the church's Mormon Trail Center near the Winter Quarters site.
The church has maintained and leased the pioneer cemetery from the city for $1 a year since the 1930s.
In 1936, LDS Church prophet Heber J. Grant and other church leaders traveled to the cemetery to dedicate a monument crafted by artist Avard Fairbanks titled "Tragedy at Winter Quarters."
Indeed, the site witnessed much tragedy, Elder Clawson said.
At its peak, Winter Quarters had a population of about 4,000 pioneers who had been exiled from their Nauvoo homes.
During that time, Winter Quarters served as church headquarters. Brigham Young and other leaders called it home.
But conditions were harsh, the winters cold. Most who died had contracted a form of malaria or scurvy.
"There were shortages in fruits and vegetables," Elder Clawson said, adding the late-season arrival of many pioneers prevented them from planting food needed to sustain them.
By 1848, Winter Quarters was essentially abandoned as survivors went West. Nebraska settlers moved to the area a few years later and began burying their dead in the cemetery.
The recognizable headstones currently found at the cemetery belong to the second wave of settlers. The Mormon pioneer graves were generally marked with some sort of wooden gravestone or rock mound, Elder Clawson said.
Almost 50,000 visited the Mormon Trail Center last year.
For many, a trip to the cemetery is an emotional journey to visit the resting place of ancestors.