Too Many, Too Few, Too Little, Too Late: The Handcart Rush at Iowa City Campground Preparations at the Mormon outfitting camp near Iowa City during the spring and summer of 1856 proved inadequate for the enormous number of European immigrants who descended on the camping ground seeking the means to continue west. Though expecting a massive influx of people, Church agents there were under-funded and overworked, with preparations beginning too late. The tremendous task of outfitting and providing handcarts for some two thousand Saints expecting to journey to Zion that season virtually overwhelmed them. The resultant delays disappointed the travelers and made more than a thousand dangerously late in beginning the trek.

Lyndia Carter, Robyn Davis