Donner Trail Park closes for $1.1M makeover

• The park will also add a memorial tree grove for visitors to remember loved ones.

Catch up quick: The park is named after the Donner Party, a group of pioneers who traveled through Emigration Canyon in the mid-1800s on their ill-fated journey from the Midwest to California.

• Historians blame the rough terrain on a "shortcut" the party took from East Canyon to the Salt Lake Valley for the delays that later put them in the path of an early blizzard in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
• Trapped and starving, some of them resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

By the numbers: Most of the improvements — $750,000 — are being funded by the parks and open space bond that voters approved in 2022.

• Another $434,000 comes from the city's Capital Improvement Program.

Between the lines: Visitors can head to the nearby Rotary Glen, Sunnyside, Davis or Laird parks instead while Donner Trail remains under construction.

What's next: Donner Trail is expected to reopen in the fall.