Mark E. Henshaw - Forty Years: The Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple

Contents

Foreword

By Jacob W. Olmstead, P h D

A s you begin this book, you might be asking yourself why you are reading a foreword by somebody youve never heard of. Let me answer that question. I am a historian who works for the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. In December 2011, I was asked to help the department better understand the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. I spent thousands of hours going through the vast holdings of the Church History Library. Others in and out of the department also scoured the archives and the temple itself to learn what happened to the temple after its dedicationchanges over time to carpeting, paint color, furnishings, artwork, and so on. This research has ultimately been used to help guide decisions about the preservation and restoration of the temple.

My research uncovered many previously unknown stories about the temples construction. It also clarified several stories that had achieved mythic status among the Latter-day Saints. It has been my hope to share these stories with those interested in the history of the Salt Lake Temple. In time, I became aware of Mark Henshaws work. As I read his manuscript, I was delighted to learn that he had written the kind of book I felt should be written for the templeand, more important, what the temple deserved. Mark had done an impressive amount of research to understand the construction of the temple and, significantly, how it was interwoven into the events in the lives of the Latter-day Saints. With Deseret Books help, it has been my privilege to work with Mark to fine-tune some of the details about the temples construction and suggest a few new stories that reveal its value.

Most readers of this volume will have some idea of the major plot points in the story of the building of the Salt Lake Temple: it was difficult to move the stone from the mountains, the construction took a long time, and it required a great deal of faith and sacrifice to get it done. That is all true. And yet, when Latter-day Saints, as well as those of other faiths, stand in the presence of this temple, they know intuitively that those facts dont quite explain the value of this building. It somehow means more than that.

Permit me to share a couple of stories that for me help capture the meaning of the Salt Lake Temple. When the Latter-day Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, they really had nothing. They were destitute. They had wagons, some cattle, seed, and little else. But they did have their faith. The day following Brigham Youngs arrival was the Sabbath day. Thomas Bullock, the official clerk for the first pioneer company, briefly recorded that Apostle George A. Smith offered the first Sabbath-day sermon in the valley. He wrote, Elder G. A. Smith preached about the House of the Lord being established on the tops of the Mountains. Isaiah 2:2 would have been the text for that sermon. In these verses, the Old Testament prophet, who lived more than 2,500 years before the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, prophesied that in the last days,... the mountain of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. This sermon, among other events, suggests to me that the temple was central to the Saints purpose in establishing a city and a people centered on the Lord and His gospel. In this they followed the pattern established by Joseph Smith. But what is more astounding is the notion that these Latter-day Saints, who had nothing, intended to fulfill this Old Testament prophecy in preparation for the Lords return. That vision, that purpose, that faith drove the pioneers forward to do something truly extraordinary. As you read this book, the magnitude of the Saints devotion to achieve this goal will become clearer.

A second meaningful event took place about five and a half years later, during the groundbreaking ceremony for the temple. By this time, a much larger group of Latter-day Saints had gathered to hear the words of their Church leaders and to take turns scooping shovels full of frozen dirt out of the ground. During Brigham Youngs comments, he rehearsed the events in the history of the Church that had brought them to that point, including the adversity that had come to the Saints in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, but also how they had been led by an overruling Providence to this consecrated spot. The Saints had taken steps into the darkness and were now enjoying the first shimmers of morning light. Following President Youngs remarks, two bands gathered to the center of the temple plot and played a soul cheering strain of the old Scottish folk song Auld Lang Syne. On this occasion the Saints remembered with a song the old times and the old friends, but also rejoiced in the beginning of a new era in Church history. And the Salt Lake Temple was at the center of this new era for the next forty years. This era has continued with the temple at the center, as the Lords prophets and apostles gather to the Salt Lake Temple to receive direction for the building of His kingdom on the earth.

These kinds of vignettes offer valuable insight into how much the Salt Lake Temple meant to the Latter-day Saints. They provide a window into the thoughts, emotions, and devotion exhibited during the building saga. In them we can find a kinship that will bless each of us on our own spiritual journey and in our efforts to build the Lords kingdom.

Mark Henshaws work to weave together many vignettes and story lines also allows the reader to step back and take in a much larger picture of the significance of the Salt Lake Temple. To me, the story of the Salt Lake Temple reveals the absolute supremacy the Saints placed on the ordinances and covenants that are housed and delivered in the house of the Lord. It was at the core of everything they did. Collectively, they had no other thought than to demonstrate their willingness to do the Lords will. Forty Years: The Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple shows that this was not an easy road. It took time, it took patience, it took sacrifice. But this was the kind of work that made them Saints. They were refined by this process. The history of its construction imbues the Salt Lake Temple with meaning for a global body of Latter-day Saints. The value of this story transcends direct ancestral connection or geography.

Like the spired temple itself, the story of its construction pulls our gaze upward to the heavens.

Preface

A s of this writing, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has one hundred fifty operating temples in forty-three countries. Seventeen more are under construction or renovation, and thirty-four others have been announced. The Church does not lack for resources to build or maintain these holy buildings. The entire cost of construction for each one is allocated before groundbreakingthe Church does not take out loans or mortgages to fund construction, which usually takes only a few years once begun. When obstacles to construction arise, whether physical, legal, or political, the Church can call on highly educated and experienced men and women to work through the problems. For most Latter-day Saints, the hardest part of temple building is waiting for the prophets announcement of where new temples will be built and hoping one will be constructed close to home.