Gulls' Deliverance of the Mormon Pioneers from Crickets

In 1848, the Salt Lake Valley pioneers faced a devastating plague of crickets that threatened their crops. Divine intervention occurred when thousands of gulls appeared from the Great Salt Lake, consumed the crickets, and repeated the process for days until the crops were cleared, saving the settlement. The source identifies this as a sign of divine favor similar to the quail sent to the Israelites.

Pioneer efforts to combat the insects involved diverse methods beyond mere physical defense, including attempting to drown them, driving them into fires, using bells and tin pans to create noise, and pulling ropes across crops to dislodge the pests. Mrs. Lorenzo Dow Young noted that the crickets decimated a patch of beans in twenty minutes, while others such as Isaac Haight reported that the insects specifically ate the heads off the grain as it matured. While the arrival of the gulls in early June 1848 provided relief, contemporary historical analysis suggests that the crops suffered from a combination of frost, drought, and cricket infestations simultaneously, and that the miraculous nature of the event became more pronounced in collective memory over time.