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It was a horrible thing.

I was driving across the country once many years ago and we arrived at a park with a campground in the late evening and decided to stop there for the night. We set up camp and went to bed almost immediately, because the place was somehow unpleasant. My kids didn’t sleep at all and I had to keep getting up and going to them, and in fact none of us could sleep. I woke up in a real panic in the middle of the night, something that never happens to me because I love going camping and I am not nervous at all.

As soon as the faintest dawn broke, we got up and packed up and drove out of the camp. At the gate, we stopped and read the sign: Mountain Meadows. There was a brief description of what had happened on the site, but it wasn’t until later that I read the full story. However, that did explain our horrible night (and I’m not even a very “sensitive” person). It must have been awful.

The mormon church owns the site and continues to refuse to allow descendants to honor their dead by allowing them to erect a cross.

I was driving across the country once many years ago and we arrived at a park with a campground in the late evening and decided to stop there for the night. We set up camp and went to bed almost immediately, because the place was somehow unpleasant. My kids didn’t sleep at all and I had to keep getting up and going to them, and in fact none of us could sleep. I woke up in a real panic in the middle of the night, something that never happens to me because I love going camping and I am not nervous at all. As soon as the faintest dawn broke, we got up and packed up and drove out of the camp. At the gate, we stopped and read the sign: Mountain Meadows.

The Old Testament describes innocent blood on the ground as a territorial pollutant. (References in book of Numbers & in Isaiah)

In the early chapter of Deut. 21, if a murdered man did not yield a murderer, they sacrificed a heifer & pleaded with God not to hold them accountable for the lack of justice. (Unsolved murders don't just leave bloodstains; but a stain on the guilt of a people group around them who don't care enough to ensure that sin is atoned for)

Here's the Deut. passage: If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4 and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck. 5 The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall declare: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man." And the bloodshed will be atoned for. (Deut. 21:1-8)

I wonder if local Mormons have ever gone to the site & prayed, "Lord, please don't hold us accountable for what was done here. May the blood of Christ atone for the sin of our physical and spiritual ancestors." ??? If not, perhaps THAT explains the unease there...it's never been solved ... or spiritually resolved...