The Mormon Passage through Missouri In 1838, Missouri Governor
Lilburn Boggs issued the "Order of Extermination" that ordered
the killing or removal of Mormons residing in
Missouri—initiating an exodus of Latter-day Saints. Though there
seems to be no historical evidence that Missouri carried out
these threats, the order spurred Mormons to leave the state in
search of friendlier territory. Over time, the Order of
Extermination has become a symbol of violence and discrimination
against Mormons, resulting in a distortion of what historical
evidence suggests actually happened: emigration and eventual
prosperity, not mass extermination, from 1838 to 1869. Fred E.
Woods sheds new light on this 30-year period of Mormon history
on Sunday, May 17, at 2 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th
St. His presentation will reveal that Mormons used Missouri as
an outfitting post to travel west by wagon to their promised
land—in spite of the Order of Extermination—until the arrival of
the transcontinental railroad. Woods is