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Carrying a handful of dimes, the 86-year-old president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints walked out on scaffolding surrounding the tallest tower atop the Salt Lake Temple.
Just a few days earlier, on April 6, 1892, Wilford Woodruff had pushed a button that dropped the temple’s capstone in place. Now he was on a different mission, and he wrote about it in his journal.
“I took Emma & two of her children, Nelly & Alice, & went to the temple & was drawn up to the top tower in an elevator, myself & family. We all put a dime apiece into the topstone. We went through every room in the house. We saw a great deal of work yet to be done in order to get the work done by next April conference,” he wrote.
The Woodruffs weren’t alone. It became a brief tradition for those who could get access to the scaffolding to go see the spectacular view of the Salt Lake Valley and to place a dime into the horizontal seam between the capstone and its base, according to Mark Henshaw, author of “Forty Years: The Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple.”
It’s a fun story to revisit now that President Russell M. Nelson has announced that for six months in 2027, the church will throw open the doors of “the Temple of temples” — that’s what President Woodruff and his councilors called it in a March 1893 letter, according to James E. Talmage in “The House of the Lord.”
It will be the first and only public open house for the temple since its original, two-hour open house on April 5, 1893. That’s right, two hours, according to historian Richard Cowan.
The public open house will be held at the end of a seven-year renovation project.
The repairs and refreshing of the temple included the removal of the capstone. Preservationists opened it and showed approximately 400 coins found under and in the capstone’s concrete to President Nelson and his counselors in the First Presidency in July 2020. It is unlikely one of the Woodruffs coins was among them because of where the coins were found.
In 2021, President Nelson also walked out on scaffolding above the temple to review the renovation work. The capstone wasn’t back in place then, but it is now, again acting as the footstool for the Angel Moroni statue.
Fifteen of the coins found in the capstone were inscribed with names. People filed off one side of the coin to make room, to the delight of historians.
“Now we have names we can attach to stories,” said Emiline Twitchell, a conservator at the Church History Library. “It’s a cool feeling to come across a coin with someone’s name on it, especially when you’ve been looking at a bunch of deteriorated books.”
One coin bore the name of 10-year-old Florence “Flossy” Hull, who lived in the Avenues in Salt Lake City. Others included 17-year-old Alice Hillam, her sister Emily Hillam and her brother R. Hillam Jr., who lived near 400 South.
“We’re not sure if those families all climbed the scaffolding together or someone went up and threw all the coins in,” said Emily Utt, historic sites curator with the Church History Department.
My Recent Stories
President Dallin H. Oaks calls for emphasis on Easter and the literal, universal resurrection (Feb. 16)
BYU to reopen Jerusalem Center after 18-month closure for Gaza war (Feb. 14)
Salt Lake Temple will open its doors to public for six months during 2027 open house (Feb. 14)
About the church
The new Latter-day Saint hymnbook has 15 more songs, including “This Little Light of Mine.” The full list is here.
The First Presidency released a rendering of the Tuguegarao City Philippines Temple and the exact site of the Culiacán Mexico Temple. See both here.
The First Presidency also announced the April groundbreaking date for the Lethbridge Alberta Temple.
Elder David A. Bednar and the Primary General Presidency spoke to children during a Friend to Friend broadcast on Saturday.
Elder Patrick Kearon ministered to church members in Jamaica, Guyana and Guatemala, where he told youth that knowing one’s divine identity can be a source of strength.
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square is not at Temple Square right now. It’s in Peru for a concert Saturday at the National Stadium! The concert will be streamed on the choir’s YouTube channel.
What I’m reading
University of Utah President Taylor Randall, who is a church member, delivered this week’s Ensign College devotional and encouraged students to build “spiritual grit,” which often is the faith-enhancing sum of several critical virtues including courage, patience and gratitude, he said.
My Deseret News colleague Jacob Hess wrote about “seven common ways journalistic ethics are being disregarded.”
The New York Times published a piece that in part highlighted some church members trying to keep political discourse civil.
A Black preacher wrote an open letter that in part thanked church member Mitt Romney for his civility as a public servant.
Usually this sounds like a conspiracy theory or a movie script: An asteroid could hit Earth in 2032. Don’t panic — yet. NASA says there really is a 2.1% chance at this stage.
For those who live in Utah, some members of the Legislature are proposing a law that journalists and open-records advocates say would reduce government transparency.
Behind the Scenes
