Research Design:The Salt Flat Donner-Reed Party

Madalyn Henderson

Salt Lake Community College

December 6, 2022
 Introduction

The Salt flat Donner-Reed party is located in Bonneville Utah just south of the

great Salt Lake. They have the artifacts found across the majority of the salt flats,

and most of which are stored in a museum in Grantsville Utah. The Bonneville salt

flats are very unique feature to Utah. The salt flats is a stretch of land over 30,000

acres covered in densely packed salt. It is managed by the bureau of land

management. The Bonneville salt flats are in northern Utah, just outside of Tooele it

is currently used as a recreational place and is home to the salt flats international

Raceway.

While crossing the salt flats, the Donner party lost many wagons and the

belongings that we left behind slowly started to become somewhat buried. Though

many of the artifacts are now in the Donner-Reed memorial museum you can still

visit the site today. Though the public access and lack of supervision is one of the

biggest downfalls of the site as it has been a very popular area for teenagers. The
salt flats were originally a lake bed. It is covered with salt and other minerals. The

reason the salt flats were formed, was because of the arid climate of the desert. In

order for a salt flat form, you need to have a source of salt and enclosed basin so

that the salt can’t be washed away. As well as to have a dry environment to dry up

any water. In western United States, you can find salt flats across Nevada and Utah.

Historic background

The Donner party otherwise known as the Donner-Reed party were a group

following the manifest destiny. The manifest destiny was the nation's westward

expansion. It was believed that our destiny was to conquer, prosper and settle the

continent of the United States of America. The settlers would not only risk their lives,

but also their inheritance for what was known as the promised lands. The concept of
manifest destiny originated in the 17th century, coming from English protestants

and/or puritans. Though the actual phrase “manifest destiny” didn’t originate until the

19th century.

The Donner party which originally consisted of 90 people left Springfield

Illinois on April 14, 1846 for the hope of fulfilling not only the manifest destiny, but for

a chance at the fertile land and riches in California. The group was following what is

known as the Oregon trail. The Oregon Trail was about 2000 miles from Missouri to

Oregon, it was used as the main route pioneers would use to immigrate west

passing through various different states, including Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon,

Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. It was a very challenging trail, full of different

streams and rivers, steep hills, violent storms, and the potential it of diseases is

estimated that of the 350,000 who embarked on the trail about 30,000 of them fell

victim to the harsh conditions they had to face.

One of the many issues the group faced was known as the Hastings Cutoff.

Hastings, cut off, was invented by a man named Lansford Hastings. Hu was a

lawyer, but wanted to move west before wealth. In 1842 he traveled to Oregon and

then to California which at the time was part of Mexico, though he created a plan

that could result in an independent country. His plan was to have enough immigrants

settle in the area and take California. So he created the Hastings cutoff, which was

believed to be a faster route than the Oregon Trail. Beginning in Fort Bridger,

Wyoming traveling through the Wasatch mountain range, Weber canyon, the great

Salt Lake desert and the ruby mountains.

 The claim was that it would be directly to California, even though the more

experienced travelers warned the Donner party as well as Hastings, riding the trail

without ever traveling it himself, they still chose to take the cutoff. The Hastings

cutoff was a grueling path; it was 125 miles longer than the original route, it had little

to no water, and the weathering conditions overall made the path not worth it.

The Donner party took off on the Hastings cut off on July 31, which the first

week went very well though they ended up losing two weeks time having to create a

new trail through the Wasatch mountains. On August 30. They enter the great Salt

Lake desert. And in the Salt Lake desert which Hasting said, but only took two days

to cross the party had little supplies and ended up taking five days to cross, losing

dozens of cattle and having to abandon several wagons. They then lost countless

days searching for the missing cattle. This setback caused them to reach the
Humboldt river in late September forcing the Donner party to race against the

climate and get to California before winter hit.

To add to the setbacks, there was a fight between reed, and another family

member, which ended with Reed stabbing the man and having to continue on

horseback by himself, leaving the rest of his family with the Donner party. Shortly

after they began to run low on food and had lost several of the remaining cattle.

Then in late October, they were blocked by deepening snow. From here they set up

two camps, one by a lake, and the other a few miles east setting up small cabins.

This would set the scene for tragedy, consisting of starvation and cannibalism.
 The group was stranded at these camps for 4 months. There were several

different forms of documentation among the camp. One of which describes how they

were left without fire or food and hell, two Native Americans were killed so that the

group could eat. though, when it came to the actual group, they would only consume

each other if they had died from natural causes for the most part. The environment,

both at the camps and on the Hastings cutoff, was very rough, considering it was an

environment that no settler had embarked on yet.

Throughout their journey, there were a total of 42 deaths and 47 survivors. 34

of the 42 dying at the camps are in the mountains. The last of the survivors didn’t

reach California safely until late April. In late January a rescue party was sent out

after hearing the news of the Strand Donner party. They arrived at Donner Lake, 20

days later, feeding the group before evacuating them. In total it took four different

rescue parties to help.

Research Objectives

There are many reasons why this site should be excavated. The biggest of

which would be because it is very hard to find any information about the site in

general and it is just overall not very well known. One of the biggest questions would

be what were the lives of these travelers like? What did they travel with? Was it only

supplies that were absolutely necessary or did they bring alone personal items? If

they brought personal items, was this where they got discarded? Were there things

that were discarded they could have still used? And if so could those things have
helped them to survive longer through the winter? What kind of foods were they

eating along their travels and how was it preserved?

Methods

The most preferred method would be topsoil excavation as in the salt flats it

takes a very long time for things to become buried and you can see most artifacts

from the surface. Though it would be very interesting to go down the first 6 inches

and see just how fair these things go. As well as using ground penetrating radars

and remote sensing to be able to set up boundaries. By setting up Boundaries of the

site it could even potentially lead to being able to see as close as possible to the

exact path they could have taken across the salt lake dessert.

There will be a pedestrian survey as well in order to help set the boundaries

and find the best places to use the penetrating radars. There will be people set up

15 meters apart from each other covering about 150 meters. They will move across

until artifacts on the surface begin to become sparse. There will be medium size

stakes places in the corners to help easily define where the site is defined to. As well

as smaller stakes with little flags places every 20 meters to help keep the lines

connected.

Along with these methods the first and most important step would be to make

a site map. Mapping along the different sites that are obvious to try and connect the

various different spaces where objects have been found. Clearly defining where they

topsoil excavations would take place. The topsoil excavations would be in marked

out 12x12 inch squares and the first 6 inches would be removed.
 Conclusion

In conclusion the Donner-Reed Party was an important part in history as it

gave many different outlooks on human psychology as well as inside looks at how it

was to travel back then. The Donner party also not only saved many other people

from using the Hasting cutoff but they also formed the trail the mormon pioneers

would later take to salt lake before deciding to settle. The purpose of the excavation

is to learn more about what the everyday travel life was like for the party and to learn

more of the people that embarked on the journey. Using pedestrian survey and GPR

we will locate the boundaries of the site and using the topsoil excavation we will be

able to see how well the land has preserved the artifacts.
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