 The Mormons had been evicted from Temple Lot and Missouri in the 1838 Mormon War.Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led by Brigham Young, had passed through the community in 1846, staying at nearby Garden Grove, Iowa, while en route from Nauvoo, Illinois, (where they had settled after being forced to leave Missouri) to the Salt Lake Valley.The town was formally platted adjacent to newly laid tracks of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1879.