The public is invited to a gathering Tuesday, April 25, near Kenmore, Wyo., to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the LDS settlement of the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming.
The gathering will take place at 4:30 p.m. at Hams Fork Park, four miles north of Kenmore on Highway 233. The park will be open for a picnic and recreation at 4:30 p.m. with a brief program beginning at 7 p.m. Kenmore is about a two-hour drive from Salt Lake City.Participants on the program will be Elder John Dickson of the First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a descendant of several of the Big Horn Basin pioneers; and Wilford Bruce Woodruff, a grandson of Elder Abraham Owen Woodruff, an early LDS apostle.
One hundred years ago, approximately 100 families from Utah, Idaho and Wyoming departed for the basin. It was to be the last pioneering and colonizing effort by horse team and covered wagon undertaken by the church, an effort that began in 1831.
The group traveling from Hams Fork under the leadership of Elder Woodruff assembled on the banks of the Shoshone River near present-day Powell, Wyo., at the end of May 1900. The group began work to construct on the 37-mile-long Sidon Canal.
Water from the canal made possible the establishment of the communities of Cowley, Byron and Lovell, Wyo.
More information about the commemorative activities Tuesday is available by calling Wilford Bruce Woodruff at home, 277-3946, or office, 328-9700.