When the Mormon Battalion marched into San Diego on Jan. 29, 1847, residents were not overjoyed.

“People were afraid of them,” said Michael Hemingway, director of the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in Old Town. “Here’s this American army coming in. And they had been told by others that these were religious zealots, terrible people.”

Members of the battalion won over locals, though, by digging wells, building a courthouse and making other improvements to Old Town.

This 171-year-old story will be recalled Saturday in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. A 10 a.m. parade around the park’s plaza by re-enactors will be followed by a short program. Period activities, from a Dutch oven cook-off to a children’s crafts workshop, will continue through 3 p.m.


At the nearby Mormon Battalion Historic Site, 2510 Juan St., free tours will be offered from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The battalion’s 2,000-mile journey to San Diego is one of the longest marches in U.S. history. During the Mexican-American War, 500 Midwesterners were asked to reinforce the U.S. Amy of the West in California.

In July 1846, 496 men, 36 women and 43 children — virtually all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — departed Council Bluffs, Iowa. During the six-month trek west, sickness and accidents caused the deaths of 27. That winter, most of the women and children took shelter in Pueblo, Colo. Lt. Philip St. George Cooke led the rest, 335 men and four women, to San Diego.

“By the time they got out here, the fighting was done,” said Hemingway, who is a church elder. “They were here more to secure the territory.”


Without their original mission, historian Iris Engstrand wrote in “San Diego: California’s Cornerstone,” they found jobs in Old Town: “They made a whitewash and used it to brighten up the houses. They also built a bakery, fiored bricks, build log pumps, dug wells, did blacksmithing, and repaired carts.”

Many Battalion members would return to family in Iowa, and some joined Brigham Young’s trek to the Great Salt Lake. But, Hemingway said, the departing Mormons were fondly remembered in Old Town.

“The people wanted them to stay,” he said.