A $78,000 gift from the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation will pay for a new roof at the historic Wellsville Tabernacle.
"We're just tickled about this, it's fantastic," said Kelly Maughan, second vice president of the Wells-ville Foundation. "We never dreamed they'd fund the entire project. When we got the notice, we wanted to make sure this wasn't a typo with the decimal point."Maughan said the foundation hopes to re-create the tabernacle's original wood-shingle roof clean up after birds living in the building's attic and replace four copper cones on the nearly century-old tabernacle's corners.
The building has an asphalt shingle roof that sometimes leaks.
Rita Bodily of the Eccles Foundation said the structure is the only remaining pioneer tabernacle that hasn't been restored. Bodily said the pioneers originally built 44 tabernacles, of which 22 remain.
"We felt it was very worthwhile to keep the history in Utah," she said. "This stands as a monument to the people who built the buildings."
The city of Wellsville bought the tabernacle from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1984 and sold it to Wellsville Foundation in 1995.
After beginning construction on a new city office building, the city sold the tabernacle to the foundation in 1995. Since then, the foundation has used the tabernacle for fund-raising concerts.
The old building has housed Wellsville's Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum, and the foundation hopes to put the city's senior citizens center in the basement.