Mormon Church to Push for Landmark Status at Massacre Site

Salt Lake City, USA - The Mormon church will seek National Historic Landmark status for Mountain Meadows, the Utah site that memorializes the 1857 massacre of 120 Arkansans.

Patty Norris, president of the Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants, says the disclosure came during a meeting Friday at Carrollton in northwest Arkansas with representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In December, the Mountain Meadows Association, the Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants and the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation asked the church to pursue landmark status for the site.

Arkansas members of the Fancher-Baker wagon train were heading to California when they were attacked during a stopover at the

meadow. After a week-long gun battle, the group was tricked in to a fake truce by a local Mormon leader and killed September 11, 1857.