Salt Lake Temple

The Salt Lake Temple is a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. At 253,015 square feet (23,505.9 m), it is the largest Latter-day Saint temple by floor area. Dedicated in 1893, it is the sixth temple completed by the church, requiring 40 years to complete, and the fourth temple built since the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846. The temple was closed in December 2019 for a general remodelling and seismic renovations, which were initially estimated to take approximately four years. Subsequent updates extended the estimated completion to 2026, for a total renovation timeline lasting an anticipated six or seven years.
The Salt Lake Temple is the centerpiece of the 10-acre (4.0 ha) Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. Like other Latter-day Saint temples, the church and its members consider it sacred and a temple recommend is required to enter, so there are no public tours inside the temple as there are for other adjacent buildings on Temple Square. In 1912, the first public photographs of the interior were published in the book The House of the Lord, by James E. Talmage. Since then, various photographs have been published, including by Life magazine in 1938. The temple grounds are open to the public and are a popular tourist attraction. Due to its location at church headquarters and its historical significance, Latter-day Saints from around the world patronize the temple.
The Salt Lake Temple is also the location of the weekly meetings of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As such, there are special meeting rooms in the building for these purposes, including the Holy of Holies, which are not part of other temples.
The temple includes some elements thought to evoke Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem. It is oriented towards Jerusalem and the large basin used as a baptismal font is mounted on the backs of twelve oxen, as was the Molten Sea in Solomon's Temple (see 2 Chronicles 4:2–4). (However, the literal interpretation of the Biblical verses has been disputed.) At the east end of the building, the height of the center pinnacle to the base of the angel Moroni is 210 feet (64 m).
The temple is in downtown Salt Lake City, with several mountain peaks close by. Nearby, a shallow stream, City Creek, splits and flows both to the west and to the south, flowing into the Jordan River. There is a wall around the 10-acre (4.0 ha) temple site. The surrounding wall became the first permanent structure on what has become known as Temple Square. The wall is a uniform 15 feet (4.6 m) high but varies in appearance because of the site's southwest slope.
The temple is considered the house of God and is reserved for special ceremonies for practicing Latter-Day Saints. The main ordinance rooms are used during the endowment ceremony—namely the creation, garden, telestial, terrestrial, and celestial rooms in that order of use. A washing and anointing ceremony is also administered, and until 1921, the rooms were also used for healing rituals of washing and anointing for the sick or pregnant and were administered by women and men. The temple also serves as a place for marriage sealing ceremonies for live and deceased persons. Additional uses include functioning as a location for baptisms for the dead, baptisms for health (until being discontinued in 1921), and, briefly, for re-baptism for the renewal of covenants. Other rituals performed in the temple include the second anointing ordinance for live and deceased persons, and meeting rooms for church leaders.
The temple's location was first marked by Brigham Young, the church's second president, on July 28, 1847, just four days after he arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. He marked a location between two forks of City Creek saying "Here will be the Temple of our God". In 1901, church apostle Anthon H. Lund recorded in his journal that "it is said" that Oliver Cowdery's divining rod was used to locate the temple site. The temple site was dedicated on February 14, 1853, by Heber C. Kimball. The groundbreaking ceremony was presided over by Young, who laid the cornerstone on April 6, 1853, the twenty-third anniversary of the church being organized. The architect was Truman O. Angell, and the temple features both Gothic and Romanesque elements.
An annex, designed by Joseph Don Carlos Young, is built 100 feet north of the temple. The construction of the annex started in 1892, and it was opened in 1893, at the same time as the temple itself. This building included a large entrance area and an assembly hall. In August of 1962, the main temple was closed. A new annex was opened at the north end of the temple square in March of 1966, which largely expanded the temple's capacity with a 400 seat chapel, underground dressing rooms, 4,000 lockers and large waiting rooms for marriage ceremonies. Both the annex and the addition were built using the same granite from the original quarry and designed to match the temple's architecture.
Sandstone was originally used for the foundation. During the Utah War, the foundation was buried and the lot made to look like a plowed field to prevent unwanted attention from federal troops. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the troops were called away by December. In the spring, when the foundation was uncovered to continue work, it was discovered that many of the foundation stones had cracked, making them unsuitable to hold the weight of the massive temple. Although not all of the sandstone was replaced, the inadequate sandstone was replaced. The walls are quartz monzonite (which has the appearance of granite) from Little Cottonwood Canyon, twenty miles (thirty-two kilometres) southeast of the temple site. Oxen transported the quarried rock initially, but as the Transcontinental Railroad neared completion in 1869 the remaining stones were carried by rail at a much faster rate.
During the construction, the temple grounds were seized by the US Marshal as a result of the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1886. It was later returned to the Latter-day Saints.
The capstone—the granite sphere that holds the statue of the Angel Moroni—was laid on April 6, 1892, by means of an electric motor and switch operated by Wilford Woodruff, the church's fourth president, thus completing work on the temple's exterior. The Angel Moroni statue, standing 12.5 feet (3.8 m) tall, was placed on top of the capstone later the same day. At the capstone ceremony, Woodruff proposed the building's interior be finished within one year, which would allow the temple to be dedicated forty years, to the day, after its commencement. John R. Winder was instrumental in overseeing the interior's completion on schedule; he would serve as a member of the temple presidency until his death in 1910. Woodruff dedicated the temple on April 6, 1893, exactly forty years after the cornerstone was laid.
At the end of 2019, the temple was closed for a seismic retrofitting designed to allow it to withstand a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, the strongest expected magnitude in the Salt Lake Valley; work was expected to take about four years. Other facilities on Temple Square (and certain parts of the main temple) were to be demolished, reconstructed, and modernized in line with seismic code. Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems will be replaced, Initially the interior and its historical artifacts were planned to be preserved (although plans were later changed and many historic elements were removed) and plazas and landscaping modified. Visitor access and tourism would remain during the entire renovation process, but in regulated and coordinated fashion.
Prior to 2019, the building had never been decommissioned for renovation and only minor updating of finishes and systems had occurred within the temple proper (although multiple "annex" additions had been added and removed in the past). This meant the temple's core historic architecture, layout, and workmanship had been preserved for 126 years.
Before reconstruction started, church leaders indicated that the temple's unique historicity would be preserved. Church employees stated that special efforts would be made to highlight and honor the pioneer craftsmanship and indicated the interiors would essentially remain the same. Various renderings were released showing the instruction rooms used for the endowment ceremony would remain intact, with the original layout, woodwork and murals being preserved.
In March 2021, the church announced significant changes to the renovation plan that affected many elements in the temple's historic interior. The progressive room-to-room live endowment ceremony would be removed and the layout of the temple would change, with the baptistry being moved to the annex and new instruction rooms constructed in its place. Other rooms and walls would be reconfigured, requiring the removal of the temple's murals. The murals and many other historic features of the building were photographed and otherwise documented before being permanently removed or destroyed. These changes will allow for greater patron capacity, but the removal of many historic elements was met with criticism, especially the destruction of the temple's murals. One prominent historian described the changes as a "huge and unnecessary loss" and another noted them as a loss of "priceless cultural artifacts".
In December 2021, the church updated estimations for the renovation completion for 2025, and in March 2023, estimates for the completion were again extended to 2026. If the latest estimations prove accurate, the total reconstruction period will have lasted between six and seven years.
After stating in an October 2024 general conference address that renovations were expected to conclude by the end of 2026, church president Russell M. Nelson announced in February 2025 that a public open house is expected to be held from April to October 2027.
The Salt Lake Temple incorporates many symbolic adornments including Masonic symbols. Symbolism is an important subject to members of the LDS Church. These symbols include the following:
Two bombing incidents have damaged the temple. On April 10, 1910, a bomb at the nearby Hotel Utah (now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) damaged the trumpet of the Moroni statue atop the temple. On November 14, 1962, the southeast door of the Salt Lake Temple was bombed. FBI agents state that the explosive had been wrapped around the door handles on the temple's southeast entrance. The large wooden entrance doors were damaged by flying fragments of metal and glass. Damage to interior walls occurred 25 feet inside the temple, but damage to the interior was minor. Eleven exterior windows were shattered.
The temple suffered damage in 1999 when a tornado rated F2 on the Fujita Scale struck Salt Lake City. A wedding taking place at the time allowed a photographer to record video of the tornado as it passed near the temple, forcing the wedding party to shelter against the temple doors and pillars for protection from the wind and debris. They were not able to take shelter inside as the temple doors were locked. After being pelted with rain and hail, members of the wedding party surveyed the damage to the trees and surrounding buildings before resuming family photographs.
On the morning of March 18, 2020, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck just outside Salt Lake City. Though most of the damage was outside the city, minor damage was inflicted on the temple. The trumpet of the Angel Moroni on top of the temple's tallest spire was dislodged from the statue, and some stones from the smaller spires were displaced. No other damage to the temple was reported. The temple was early in its renovation process at the time, and the rest of the statue was removed the following May. Renovation procedures included an installation of a new statue on April 2, 2024.
Below are several photographs from the interior of the temple. In response to a member obtaining unauthorized images of the interior of the temple, church leaders decided to release the book The House of the Lord in 1912, which contained authorized black-and-white photographs of the interior, some of which are shown below. The unauthorized photographs had been taken over several months the year before by a man who was repeatedly allowed to enter with his camera while the temple was closed by a temple gardener friend.
Below are some elements of the temple have been removed during various renovations of the temple.