The Vernal Utah Temple is the fifty-first

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...

(LDS Church). Located in

Vernal Vernal, the county seat and largest city in Uintah County is in northeastern Utah, approximately east of Salt Lake City and west of the Colorado border. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 9,089. The population has since grown to ...

it is the tenth LDS temple built in the state of

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Upon its dedication November 2, 1997, the Vernal Temple was unique as the only LDS temple built from a previously existing structure. Since 1997, the Copenhagen Denmark, Manhattan New York, and Provo City Center temples have been similarly adapted from existing structures.

History

Originally, the building served as the Uintah Stake

Tabernacle According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle ( he, מִשְׁכַּן, mīškān, residence, dwelling place), also known as the Tent of the Congregation ( he, link=no, אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד, ’ōhel mō‘ēḏ, also Tent of Meeting, etc.), ...

for

Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The c ...

in eastern Utah. The Tabernacle's foundation was constructed of nearby

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

with walls built of four layers of fired brick from local

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

. The building was built with considerable donated labor from the fall of 1899 until it was dedicated on August 24, 1907, by LDS Church

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Joseph F. Smith. Smith reportedly said he would not be surprised if a temple was built there some day. Relative to other LDS Tabernacles, Roger Jackson characterized the Uintah Stake Tabernacle as relatively modest, without the decorative details found on Tabernacles in central and northern Utah. Nonetheless, he wrote, "the building is the most prominent structure in Vernal and considered the finest building in all of eastern Utah." The tabernacle was superseded by an adjacent, more modern LDS stake center in 1948. Only used irregularly thereafter, the LDS Church announced the Tabernacle's closing in 1984 for public safety reasons. Among other things, the Tabernacle lacked indoor bathrooms and access for the disabled. A local "Save the Tabernacle" committee formed, and in 1989 a preservation study was prepared. The LDS Church opted to turn the building into one of its new smaller temples, and plans were announced in 1994. In addition to preserving the exterior, bringing the building up to code, and altering the floor plan, the eastern spire of the temple was elongated to make it taller than the spire of the neighboring stake center. A golden statue of angel Moroni was placed on top of the spire facing east, a common element of almost all LDS Temples. Over 120,000 visited the temple during its two-week open house in October 1997. In 2020, like all the church's other temples, the Vernal Utah Temple was closed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

.Stack, Peggy Fletcher
"All Latter-day Saint temples to close due to coronavirus"
'' The Salt Lake Tribune'', 26 March 2020. Retrieved on 28 March 2020.

References

Additional reading

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Additional information
from

Mormon Literature & Creative Arts Mormon Literature & Creative Arts is a database of Latter-day Saint media and creators. It contains entries on film, music, and writings, as well as directors, composers, and writers. It is "an important critical resource that seeks to comprehens ...

. * * * *

External links

*
Vernal Utah Temple Official site

Vernal Utah Temple
at ChurchofJesusChristTemples.org

''Desert News'' article from 1997 about the transformation of the tabernacle into a temple. {{Authority control 1997 establishments in Utah 20th-century Latter Day Saint temples Buildings and structures in Uintah County, Utah Religious buildings and structures completed in 1997 Temples (LDS Church) in Utah

History

See also

References

Additional reading

External links