St. Louis was a major trailhead along the Mississippi River that attracted thousands of MOrmons in the 1850s, where they set up shops, practiced their trades, and formed congregations.  It was there that Erastus Snow published the St. Louis Luminary, a weekly newspaper featuring epistles from church leaders, doctrinal treatises in defense of Mormon practices--especially plural marriage--and news and letters from the Salt Lake Valley. Book includes a searchable DVD of all issues of all the newspapers, complete with scholarly annotations.