
Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City has a ton to see, history, art and more.
Posts for things on or near Temple Square:
- Assembly Hall
- Brigham Young Historic Park
- Brigham Young Monument
- Christmas Lights
- Church Office Building
- Conference Center
- Eagle Gate
- Great Salt Lake Base and Meridian
- Honor thy Father and Thy Mother
- Joseph Smith Memorial Building
- LDS Church Administration Building
- LDS Temple
- Pioneer Log Home
- Tabernacle
- US Base Meridian
- Visitor Centers – North and South
- 2007 Photos
- Temple Square Christmas Lights 2016
- Temple Square Christmas Lights 2017
- Temple Square Christmas Lights 2018
- Temple Square Christmas Lights 2019

Temple Square is located between North Temple and South Temple and between West Temple and State Street in the downtown neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places October 15, 1966 (#66000738).

Temple Square is a ten acre block in Salt Lake City, the point from which all city streets are numbered. A fifteen foot high wall surrounding the square does much to give the square a more peaceful atmosphere than the surrounding business area. Completed in 1857, the wall is adobe with a sandstone base. The square includes eight major points of interest, landscaped grounds and smaller monuments. The major structures include:
The TABERNACLE. Constructed 1863-67 by Henry Grow and William Folsom, the 150×250 foot tabernacle is covered by a unique Remington “lattice -truss” roof, supported only by great wooden arches. The roof rests like a great inverted bowl on 44 red sandstone buttresses. The Tabernacle is particularly impressive since its construction was completed prior to the use of steel girders and tie rods in building. The acoustic
qualities of the Tabernacle are famous — a pin dropped near the pulpit can be heard distinctly in the opposite end of the auditorium, some 200 feet away. The Tabernacle Organ is also well-publicized.: First used in 1867 with 700 pipes operating, the organ has been powered by electricity since 1915 and now totals nearly 11,000 pipes.
THE TEMPLE. The temple was built 1853-1893 under the direction of Truman O. Angell and Joseph Young. Its foundation is sixteen feet wide and sixteen feet deep, with basement walls nine feet thick. The 186 J./2 by 118 1/2 foot structure is mounted with an east center tower 210 feet high and a west center tower 204 feet high. Flanking both center towers are towers of lesser height. The Temple has been open to Mormons only since 1893.
ASSEMBLY HALL. Constructed 1877-1882 by William Folsom, the semi-Gothic hall is 120 x 68 feet and was built to accommodate overflow from conferences in the Tabernacle. Its incomplete spires were originally chimneys.
THE OLD LOG CABIN. This small, one-room cabin was built in 1847 at the mouth of Emigration Canyon above Salt Lake City. In 1849 it was moved downtown, and in 1921 it was given to the Mormon Church. It was then moved first to the Vermont Building Museum and later to Temple Square, where it was placed underneath an open, neo-classical enclosure for protection.
MUSEUM. The forerunner of the present museum was established in 1869 by John W. Young son of Brigham Young. In 1904 the first section of the present building was erected and in 1910 a second story was added.
VISTOR’S CENTER. This modern building was opened in 1966, and offers displays and films portraying the history and doctrine of the Mormon Church. Included are a three dimensional diorama of Joseph Smith’s vision and a reproduction of Thorvaldsen’s Christus, surrounded by a massive painting of the universe.
SEA GULL MONUMENT. Erected in 1913, the monument commemorates the rescue of the Mormon’s 1848 grain crop from a plague of crickets by sea gulls from the west. A granite pedestal and column 16 feet high support a large granite ball upon which two sea gulls, bronze with gold leaf, are alighting. The sculptor was Mahroni Young. Other monuments include memorials to Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith (brother of Joseph, killed with him in Illinois, 1844), the Handcart Pioneers, and to “the witnesses to the divine origin of the Book of Mormon.”

The modern metropolis of Salt Lake City is today an imposing monument to the determination and industry of the Mormons following their arrival in Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Of the many historic sites and buildings in Salt Lake City, Temple Square best captures the essence of the Mormon achievement in building a kingdom on the Utah desert. It illustrates, for Mormons and non-Mormons alike, the migration
to Great Salt Lake Valley and the formative years of the civilization there erected. Today Temple Square not only dominates the architecture but also the daily life of Salt Lake City.
Such was Brigham Young’s intent when in 1847 he approved the plan of the city. Punching his cane into the ground, he said, “Here will be the Temple of our God.” Forty acres, later reduced to 10, were staked out, and from the southeast corner of the square Orson Pratt surveyed and laid out the streets of the city.

Temple Square began to take shape in the early 1850 f s. By 1855 a 15-foot adobe and sandstone wall surrounded the square. In 1853 ground-breaking ceremonies launched construction of Brigham Young’s “Temple of our God.” The general plan was Young’s, conceived before the exodus from Missouri, and the details were worked out by Church architect Truman O. Angell. The walls rose slowly as great granite blocks, quarried in Little Cottonwood Canyon, were hauled by ox-team 20 miles to the building site. A railroad later hastened the process, but not until April 6, 1892, did thousands gather to watch the capstone placed on the towering edifice. Less slow of completion was the Tabernacle, then as now an architectural and engineering marvel. Conceived by Young as a meeting place for the General Conference of the Church, it was begun in 1862 and finished in 1867. By 1870 the great Tabernacle organ – 27 pedals, 2,638 pipes, and 35 stops—had been installed. The third historic building, completed in 1882, was the Assembly Hall, designed as a non-sectarian place of worship. Other buildings and monuments added in later years filled in the present pattern of Temple Square.
In addition to these major structures, Temple Square is also the location of the 1963 Visitor’s Center; the Church Bureau of Information and Museum, which displays exhibits depicting the migration and early years of Salt Lake City; the oldest house in Salt Lake City, a log cabin moved from its original location near present Pioneer Park; the Seagull Monument, commemorating the gulls that saved the first crops from destruction by crickets in 1848; and statues of the Three Witnesses (who testified to the authenticity of Joseph Smith’s golden plates), of Brigham Young, and of pioneer photographer Charles R. Savage. The wall built in the 1850’s still encloses the square.





















































































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