Mormon pioneer days to be relived at Genoa park

A group associated with the present-day U.S. Mormon Battalion organization will return for the third year to Mormon Station State Historic Park to show the public how their ancestors lived after settling in Genoa in 1851, then called Mormon Station.

The Sierra Nevada Mormon Pioneers are based in Carmichael, Calif., near Sacramento.

At the free event, costumed members will demonstrate corn husk doll making, rope making, fire starting and leather working, and have a variety of items on display from Mormon history.

Mormon Station was renamed Genoa by Orson Hyde, after Christopher Columbus' birthplace, Genoa, Italy. Hyde had been sent to survey the town site by the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young.

Thinking there was a rebellion going on in their home state of Utah and that they had to go fight, the settlers returned to Utah in the late 1850s. The colonists were all gone by 1860.

The event, which includes periodic firing of a cannon, will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Visitors can tour the museum and see artifacts found during the recent construction projects. Glass buttons, bottles, pottery fragments, and several tools are on display. The museum is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. There is a $2 museum entry fee; kids 12 and younger are free. Park visitors can enjoy picnicking, entrance into the stockade and viewing the wagon shelter at no charge.

For information on Mormon Station State Historic Park, call park supervisor Suzanne Sturtevant at 782-2590.