Dedication of the Logan Utah Temple
The Logan Utah Temple was dedicated in three sessions from May 17 to May 19, 1884, by Church President John Taylor. This was the only temple that President Taylor dedicated. City officials from Logan planned for a large number of visitors, so they tidied up the city before the dedication. A committee was set up to provide food and sleeping quarters for travelers, and excursion trains ran with reduced rates to accommodate visitors.
This house of the Lord was built largely by volunteer labor and donations of early Latter-day Saints. More than $600,000 in time, goods and cash was donated to build the second temple in the Utah Territory.
Around $2,300 was donated by Primary children in the Cache Valley Stake as part of a “nickel drive” to help raise funds. Children would donate nickels and dimes to the fund to help pay for building materials. During the construction process, a young boy approached the worksite to view the building. A guard had been tasked with keeping young children away from the scaffolding for their safety. However, the young boy protested, stating that he had paid his nickel for the temple and felt he had a right to view the construction. The guard changed his mind, allowing the young boy the chance to stand on the scaffolding.
Among the volunteers were Sagwitch and his band of fellow Shoshone Saints, about 200 of whom had joined the Church 11 years before the Logan temple dedication. Before their baptisms, Sagwitch’s people had suffered a devastating massacre at the hands of the United States Army at their settlement by the Bear River. After their conversions, however, Church leaders granted them their own land along the northern Utah border, and the natives created the town of Washakie and worshipped in their own ward. Traveling to Logan in their spare time, men from Washakie helped haul stone and prepare plaster for the walls, donating thousands of hours.
During the dedication, President Taylor said that temple ordinances would bring increased spiritual light like a “tidal wave” that would be felt around the globe.
About a year after the dedication, Sagwitch and four other Shoshones spent four days in Logan performing ordinances on behalf of their deceased family members, many of whom had been killed in the Bear River Massacre.
Dedicatory prayer excerpt: “We humbly seek unto Thee for Thy blessing to rest upon this house, that it may be indeed a house of learning under Thy guidance, direction and inspiration, as Thou didst ordain the laws of the universe. ... We ask that in this house a more full knowledge of Thee and Thy laws may be developed.”
Read the dedicatory prayer of the Logan Utah Temple here.
Rededication of the Logan Utah Temple
From its 1884 dedication to its temporary closure in 1976 for renovations, 26,258,390 ordinances were performed in the Logan temple, more than 18% of the total work throughout all temples at the time.
After a complete interior reconstruction that replaced all the temple’s interior walls and rooms, the Church held an open house for the Logan Utah Temple starting Feb. 5, 1979. Although around 90,000 people were initially expected to attend, the event brought in over 213,000 guests.
From March 13 to March 15, 1979 — almost 95 years after the first dedication — Church President Spencer W. Kimball rededicated the Logan temple throughout nine sessions. President Ezra Taft Benson, Elder Howard W. Hunter, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley and Elder Thomas S. Monson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles also addressed the congregation during a dedicatory session, meaning one current and four future Presidents of the Church spoke at the Logan Utah Temple rededication.
In his address in the first session, President Kimball retraced the history of the Logan temple from the time Brigham Young announced it in 1876 to its dedication in 1884.
“Now, nearly 95 years later this temple stands, in all its majesty, as a monument to the faith and devotion to our pioneer fathers,” President Kimball said.
Elder Hinckley read a proclamation released by the First Presidency on March 26, 1907, when there was much opposition to the Church. Applying the text to the temple, he read, “Our purposes are not petty or earthbound.”
“I know of no work in all the world more unselfish than what is done in the temples,” Elder Hinckley said. “It is done in behalf of those who are dead, motivated by the doctrine that the dead cannot help themselves.”
He added: “The work more closely approaches the Spirit of Christ than any other service I can conceive of.”
Dedicatory prayer excerpt: “We are pleased that this glorious building has been in operation for near a hundred years to satisfy the needs of thy people. We are grateful that thy early saints did establish these monuments in the valleys of the mountains, as foretold by the prophets, and now other beautiful edifices are being planned and marked for many nations and many peoples therein.”
Read the rededication prayer of the Logan Utah Temple here.
Timeline of the Logan Utah Temple
The Logan Utah Temple was announced by President Brigham Young on Oct. 6, 1876. Ground was broken for construction on May 18, 1877, and President John Taylor dedicated the temple on May 17, 1884.
This house of the Lord has since undergone several renovations, including reparations after a fire in 1917 and a complete interior reconstruction in 1976. The Logan temple was later rededicated by President Spencer W. Kimball on March 13, 1979. Temple grounds were renovated in 2009, and the Logan Utah Temple will undergo renovations in the coming years, once plans are released.
Architecture and Design of the Logan Utah Temple
The Logan Utah Temple sits on a nine-acre site and originally had a floor area of 59,130 square feet. After remodeling, the temple now has a base of 115,507 square feet. The building’s main structure reaches 86 feet high, and the tallest point of the building is a tower on the east side that reaches 170 feet.
The building was originally painted in a pinkish color to hide the dark siliceous limestone exterior, but the paint weathered away in the early 1900s. Buff-colored limestone was also used for intricate shaping in the exterior since it can be carved more easily.
The five-story building was built in a castellated style. Atop both short sides of the rectangular house of the Lord sits a domed cupola with a square base. Each short side of the temple also has two octagonal towers that reach 100 feet tall. Rows of arched windows line the building, each with a white frame.
Inside the temple are 11 sealing rooms, four ordinance rooms, a baptistry and a celestial room.