SOURCE: An introduction to Nauvoo: The City of Joseph, Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1974, pp. 5-10.

In the following excerpt, the authors describe the historical significance of the Mormon experiences in Nauvoo, Illinois, and suggest that Joseph Smith's religious and political activity there facilitated the Mormon migration to Utah.

During the spring and summer of 1839 thousands of Mormon refugees (recently expelled from the hostile state of Missouri under a harsh gubernatorial "extermination" order accompanied by military force) swarmed into a partially swampy, somewhat fever-infested Mississippi River peninsula in Hancock County, Illinois, to take over the small hamlet of Commerce and establish in its place the City of Nauvoo—soon to become the largest city in the state. The history of the brief Mormon occupation there (1839-46) is one of the outstanding success stories of the mid-West, mid-century American frontier, even though the saints were finally expelled from their beautiful city...