City of Las Vegas, Las Vegas Boulevard State Scenic Byway
Mormon Fort, NV

The Mormon Fort is what remains of the settlement of the 30 Mormon missionaries that first settled the area back in the 1850s. This site is the first western settlement that eventually became Las Vegas.

Today the site is part of the Old Las Vegas Mormon State Historic Park. Mormon missionaries from Utah arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada to build a fort and create a station between the settlements of the Mormons in California and Utah. Once the fort was built, it served travelers, and the area appeared as an establishment soon to be permanent. Trouble between the missionaries and the federal authorities arose, however, and resulted in the missionaries leaving the area in 1857 after only a few years of living there.