"...To the Glory of God..."

THE STORY OF THE MORMON TEMPLE AT ST. GEORGE, UTAH, BY JUANITA BROOKS The Mormon Temple in St. George, Utah, both because of its massive size and its pure white color, is an impressive sight to the traveler on U. S. Highway 91. Detached and otherworldly, it dominates the entire landscape.

To understand the significance of this temple, one must know something of the history of this little city which it at once distinguishes and ennobles. He must know the theory of Brigham Young that his people should be self-sustaining, that they should produce their own needs. Since they needed cotton cloth and they needed sugar, he first conducted experiments over a number of years to determine that these could be produced in southern Utah and then he "called" a group to settle St. George.

It is interesting to look over the list of 309 names of men who were selected at the October conference in Salt Lake City, 1861. Opposite each is his address and his occupation. Among them are named farmers, masons, carpenters, a blacksmith, a wheelwright, a shinglemaker, tailor, hatter, dam builders, a vine dresser, a distiller, a cooper, a weaver, a miller, a surveyor, a mineralogist, a cabinet maker-even a sailor, a school teacher, a fiddler (besides several musicians). Along with the more practical occupations of wool carder, machinist, plasterer and chair maker, there was also a castor oil maker and a daguerrean, so that the citizens of the new community could expect services of many kinds.

For these people the call to Utah's Dixie was a severe test of their loyalty. It meant leaving homes newly built, farms and fruit trees just becoming productive, businesses established, and starting over again in a hard, hot country. Yet they came, most of them, within a few weeks after their call. As soon as they arrived on the site, they set up a temporary camp until the city could be surveyed and the streets laid out according to plan. Community life began at once, with a mayor and city council elected, a school opened in a wagon box for the younger students, and lectures, dances, choir practice, and religious services held regularly.

After the survey was made, numbers corresponding to the lots were placed in a hat and each man drew for his piece of land.

During the first ten years the town did not grow in population, since few who were not definitely called would come to this outpost and some who had been called found the going too rough and went back North. But homes were built, a Social Hall was completed, and the stone tabernacle, the court house, and the cotton factory were all well under way when Brigham Young first suggested the town as the site for the first temple in the West. At a special council meeting held January 31, 1871, he called in all the local leaders and presented the proposition to them.

Some, remembering the hardships of the past ten years, wondered how it could be done. After all, there were fewer than 1,200 people in the town; in the whole county there were but 2,631 people. Of these, none were well-to-do; most would be considered poor; many had not even the bare necessities of food and clothing. They had struggled with the alkaline soil and they had fought a losing fight with the river. That stream, alternately drowsy and rampageous, ignored their ditches and passed up their dam or took it along with a fine disdain. The black lava rocks and the vermilion cliffs, fantastically carved, seemed to gather and intensify the heat; the hot winds sometimes literally blew their growing crops out of the ground. Several times food had been so scarce in the little colony that they had been forced to ration it until they could get supplies from the North. Under such conditions, and with no capital, how could they build a temple?

"We do not need capital," President Young said. "We have raw material; we have labor; we have skill. We are better able to build a temple than the saints were in Nauvoo."

For the most part, the people of the southern mission were overjoyed at the suggestion. To be singled out as a temple city was a distinction indeed. And a temple would mean that the town would be permanent, that the resources of the Church would be used to supply their needs.

It was not until November 6, 1871, that the ground was officially broken and the work begun. In the meantime the sources of rock, lime, sand, and lumber had been carefully explored and arrangement had been made to use all the tithing collected south of Beaver for the project. From that day on for six years the loyalty and idealism of this people took visible form in the erection of this building. Rich and poor, young and old, every person contributed in one way or another to it. Young Thomas Smith, hired to stand guard for $1.20 a night, contributed half the amount to the building; 18-year-old John Stucki walked five miles from the Swiss colony to work all day at the quarry and then walked home again at night, contributing also half his allowance to the cause.

Local men were expected to donate as their "tithing labor" one day in ten. Men from the northern part of the State were called on forty-day missions to contribute to the building. All who worked were given orders on the tithing office which enabled them to draw upon the stores of food there. Skilled workers who stayed with the building throughout were paid half cash and half tithing office script.

John L. Smith and Charles Pulsipher visited all the settlements and collected contributions of foodstuffs. A. P. Winsor cared for the Church herd of cattle at Pipe Springs, Arizona, from whence he hauled loads of butter and cheese, and drove beef cattle to be killed as needed. Thus, assured of food at least, the people united on the project as a great community undertaking.

Every phase of the work had its own dramatic story. At the excavation they ran into a strata of swampy, boggy ground just when they thought it was done. Surely in such a place they could not erect a temple. They wrote to President Young, suggesting that the site be moved slightly, just enough to miss this area. But their leader would not listen. This place had been selected and dedicated; here they would build the temple. Further than that, they would erect a building to stand until the Millenium. The local men must find some way to fill in the bog and render the foundation secure. So they improvised a pile-driver of their one cannon by filling it with lead and arranging a hoist that would lift it thirty feet into the air and drop it. With this thousandpound hammer they drove into the bog tons of black lava rock,