This article was first published in the ChurchBeat newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox weekly.
It all began with a divot.
Two days after the pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Brigham Young struck his cane into the dirt where he declared they would build a temple. Wilford Woodruff marked the spot by pounding a stick into it with a rock, according to “Forty Years: The Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple.”
Two full decades later, in 1867, the height of the Salt Lake Temple was still exactly zero feet.
By then, 14 years after the groundbreaking, all the work had been done below ground. Workers had excavated thousands of tons of dirt and wrestled a similar number of tons of sandstone and granite down from the mountains and into the foundations.
The temple continued to rise slowly.
By 1875, the walls were still only 18 feet high.
They reached 60 feet in 1880.
By 1889, the year the Eiffel Tower opened, the walls towered 160 feet above ground.
The final height of the walls was 167 feet, but the temple reaches nearly 223 feet with its towers and spires and the Angel Moroni statue.
Earlier this month, crews working on the temple’s renovation were back below the earth’s surface, pouring concrete around the underground base of a crane — how firm a foundation, indeed — that now extends higher than the temple towers’ tallest point. With the spires and statue temporarily removed, that point is about 70 yards above ground — the distance of several of Zach Wilson’s touchdown passes to Dax Milne this fall for BYU’s undefeated football team.
The four-year renovation, now finishing its 10th month, is designed to protect an international landmark. Temple Square draws 5 million visitors a year, including daily tourist groups from around the world, and has been part of worldwide marketing campaigns aimed at bringing tourists to the United States.
“We want (visitors) to think of Salt Lake just as easily as they think of Jerusalem or the Vatican as a place where Christianity really has its heart,” Elder Dean M. Davies said last year, when he was first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The crane and its concrete base are temporary additions on the south side of the temple. The crane soon will be used to assemble scaffolding for stone repair work, according to templesquare.org. It also will assist in replacing the temple’s roof.
But much more underground work lies ahead. On Oct. 6, a backhoe knocked down the walls of exposed underground areas to clear room for the chief purpose of the renovation, which is to install a seismic upgrade and shore up the foundation to stabilize the temple for generations to come, according to President Russell M. Nelson.
The seismic upgrade requires excavation to between 40 and 60 feet below ground, which is underway on the temple’s north side, where a smaller tower crane will be installed. Crews continue to place steel and concrete pillars called soldier piles deep underground to support a retaining wall for the work.
All the underground work is intended to help fulfill President Young’s bold statement in 1862, when he ordered 16-foot-thick footings of granite for the foundation.
“I want to see the Temple built in a manner that it will endure through the Millennium,” he said.
He didn’t mean the year 2000. He was referring to the 1,000 years after Christ’s Second Coming.
That goal was reiterated in the spring of 1993 in a First Presidency message written by President Gordon B. Hinckley for the 100th anniversary of the temple’s dedication:
“May it stand, as it was built to stand, through the Millennium yet to come and serve the needs of our Father’s children, those in this life and those beyond.”
My Recent Stories
President Oaks at BYU: ‘Heed our prophet’s call’ to end racism (Oct. 27, 2020)
The fight for ‘politically homeless’ Latter-day Saints continues (Oct. 27, 2020)
There will be virtual Temple Square Christmas concerts this year. Here’s how to submit a video (Oct. 22, 2020)
What I’m Reading
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints strongly opposes an Arizona proposition on recreational marijuana.
Chad Ford, a church member who was famous for his NBA draft analysis on ESPN, left sports to focus on peace. The BYU-Hawaii professor just published a new book titled “Dangerous Love.” My colleague Trent Toone interviewed him.
My colleague Court Mann published a deep look at the letters of Fred Rogers, host of the beloved American show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Our Boyd Matheson did a podcast with Mann about the piece.
Two Latter-day Saints went viral as they run against each other in the Utah governor’s race by making a video together on political civility.
Ryan Smith, a Latter-day Saint and a Brigham Young University alum who co-founded Qualtrics, bought the Utah Jazz Wednesday. When I looked at his Twitter feed, I noticed that his bio says, “I’ll go where you want me to go.”
What’s the truth about U.S. TV sports ratings this fall? I’ve read strong pieces over the past week in both The New York Times and The Athletic. The bottom line is, sports viewership is up 9%, but because at one point nearly all American sports were playing at once due to COVID-19 disrupting their seasons, the viewership numbers for most sports individually is down.
As I was researching my story on Latter-day Saint voters in the United States, I wanted to learn more about the highest ranking church member in the Trump administration, national security adviser Robert O’Brien. I read about him in the Deseret News and Al Jazeera.
This searchable map allows readers to click on their own zip code and see how much money has flowed from their area to either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
Behind the Scenes
