Location:
Echo Canyon
Distance: 1246 miles from Nauvoo

One of the last canyons the emigrants descended through before entering the Salt Lake Valley. Its high rock walls and narrow profile made it a veritable, and frequently noted, echo chamber.

William Clayton

July 16, 1847

"There was a very singular echo in this ravine, the rattling of wagons resembled carpenters hammering at board inside the highest rocks. The report of a rifle resembled a sharp crack of thunder and echoes from rock to rock for some time. The lowing of cattle and braying of mules seemed to be answered beyond the mountains. Music, especially brass instruments, had a very pleasing effect and resembled a person standing inside the rock imitating every note. The echo, the high rocks on the north, high mountains on the south, with the narrow ravine for a road, formed a scenery at once romantic and more interesting than I have ever witnessed."

(William Clayton's Journal [Salt Lake City, Utah: Clayton Family Organization, 1921], 296.)

Abner Blackburn

Summer 1847

"Crosed to Echo Canion, that celebrated place whear every noise makes an echo. The boys made all the noise they could going through. It was truely wonderful."

(Will Bagley, ed., Frontiersman: Abner Blackburn's Narrative [Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1992], 61.)

William I. Appleby

October 23, 1849

"Moved early. Soon met a number of brethren from the Valley bound for the States, with teams, some for transporting goods, etc. from the States to the Valley. Bishop Hunter was among them, on his way with means to gather up the poor from Iowa, etc. to bring on to the Valley next year. Kinkade of the firm of Livingston and Co., at Salt Lake City, was also along with them on his way to St. Louis, Mo., to purchase goods for the Valley. Among the number bound for the States, I recognized, besides Brother Hunter, Jedediah M. Grant, Edwin D. Woolley, Abraham O. Smoot, etc. Soon after we met Brothers John Taylor, Erastus Snow, Lorenzo Snow and Franklin D. Richards of the Twelve, and Brothers John Pack, Green, Joseph Toronto, etc. bound on missions to different parts of the world, viz. to Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, France, Italy, etc. Another company of Elders had left the Valley for San Francisco, California, Sandwich Islands, etc. These last brethren we met addressed us a short time each. We bid them farewell with hearts full of love and blessings and left them and they us and each pursued on our journey. We traveled some ten miles, passed out of Echo Canyon, down Weber river, crossed over the same, and camped near the ford, being about forty miles from Great Salt lake City. Day beautiful and warm."

(William I. Appleby, Journal, 23 October 1849, as printed in the Journal History, 29 October 1849, HDC.)

Journal photographs courtesy of Infobases, Inc. [an error occurred while processing this directive]