The way they tell it, yes. Plans to occupy that area were afoot a few years before Joseph Smith was extra-judicially punished for his crimes in Illinois. It is a wild tale for sure.

Plenty of white folks saw the value in that area decades before this, mostly mining companies. They just needed a bunch of sincere hard-working schmucks to build the infrastructure. Brigham Young was happy to provide them.

The Mexican-American war had just broken out when the rank-and-file were re-consolidating in Council Bluffs, Iowa after Joesph was murdered for the crime of becoming a mask-off kiddie-fiddling tyrant.

Brigham happily leased about 500 men to the federal government for a Mormon Battalion to go secure the port of San Diego. He negotiated an exception to military uniform requirements so the ~$50/man uniform allowance could go into a general fund for the larger group to migrate west. $50k cash provided Brigham much needed liquid capital for his territorial schemes. The church was already land-rich at that point, but cash money was limiting. The battalion never saw any action, so it was regarded as a successful gambit.

The poor ordinary Mormons experienced crushing poverty for many years after settlement, it’s true. As usual, the sweet, sincere believers in things beyond themselves were used so the inner circle could accumulate more worldly wealth.

You know all those places they were chased out of? You bet your bippy that days before things got nasty, agents of the church left town with boxes of deeds to all that cheap frontier land that was sure to soar in value over the years.

It is no coincidence that in that same era, Brigham received revelation that we were yet un-worthy of the full blessings of the communistic lifestyle they originally aspired to.

Yeah, a wild ride.

But still pretty dumb.