“Contents,” Ensign, Sept. 1997, 1
Ensign
September 1997
Volume 27 Number 9
On the cover: Winter Quarters photography by Welden C. Andersen.
Inside front cover: Winter Quarters, 1846–1848 © Greg K. Olsen, oil on canvas, 22 1/2″ x 41″, 1997. Artwork courtesy of the artist and Mill Pond Press, Inc., Venice, Florida. Church headquarters from fall 1846 to summer 1848, Winter Quarters—in today’s north Omaha, Nebraska—mushroomed as the pioneers transformed open space on the west side of the Missouri River into a prairie city in two months. Each five-acre block accommodated about 20 houses and 150 to 300 people, and the townsite of approximately 200 acres eventually consisted of about 800 cabins, sod dwellings, and other buildings. Though the winter of 1846–47 proved extremely difficult, most Saints remained faithful, trusting in the Lord as they prepared to journey west.
Inside back cover: September Arrival in Emigration Canyon, by VaLoy Eaton, oil on canvas, 34″ x 36″, 1996. Beautiful fall colors greeted the more than 1,500 members of the big company as they traveled through Emigration Canyon, on the east side of Salt Lake City, to enter the valley during September and October 1847. Typically, companies in subsequent years arrived in the valley during September, just in time to settle for winter.