Category: Utah History

• The Mormon Underground Army

  The Mormon Underground Army theory held that Utah’s “Beehive State” identity concealed not only cooperative labor and industry, but a latent separatist military system prepared to defend or even revive an independent Mormon commonwealth. In its strongest form, the theory claimed that secret mountain cannon positions, hidden stores, and militia routes existed throughout the Wasatch and southern Utah corridors, ready to support secession or armed resistance. The historical core beneath the theory was substantial: the Saints really did seek a State of Deseret, the beehive really did symbolize industry and communal order, and the Nauvoo Legion really did exist as a Mormon militia with artillery and defensive planning during the territorial era. The conspiracy version carried that older military past forward into a continuing hidden mountain army.