Henefer: The Trail's Turning Point

Henefer, Utah, stands at one of the most consequential crossroads in American overland history. Just west of Echo Canyon, this valley is where the Mormon pioneers turned in July of eighteen forty-seven, leaving the Weber River route and climbing over Hogsback Summit toward the Salt Lake Valley. They were following wagon tracks left the previous year by the ill-fated Donner-Reed Party, who had passed through that same summer of eighteen forty-six on their way to catastrophe in the Sierra Nevada.

Pony Express riders later thundered through Henefer on their way between Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. The town itself takes its name from two brothers, James and William Hennefer, who established a blacksmith shop here in eighteen fifty-nine on the Overland Stage Road. Over time the spelling simplified.

Weber Canyon, which Henefer commands, was always the most critical gateway into the Great Salt Lake Valley from the east.