Visions

If that strange people, who built Nauvoo and Salt Lake, who uncomplainingly toiled across the great American Desert and made the wilderness of Utah to bloom like a garden, had been permitted to remain to perfect the works which they began here, how different would have been the history of Far West.  Instead of being a farm with scarcely sufficient ruins to mark the spot where it once stood, there would have been a rich and populous city, along the streets of which would be pouring the wealth of the world; and instead of an old and dilapidated farm-house, there would have been magnificent temples to which devout Saints from the farthest corners of the world would have made their yearly pilgrimages. But the bigotry and intolerance of the Saints toward the Gentiles and especially toward the dissenters from the new revelations of Joe Smith, rendered such a consummation impossible.

Crosby Johnson, An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Caldwell County, Missouri.    1876.  Edwards Brothers