Salt Lake Temple - Interesting Facts

Learn some of the history of the Salt Lake Temple with these interesting facts.

• Surveyors were instructed to lay out city blocks on a grid pattern with the temple literally at the heart of the city. Streets were named, and continue to be known, for their distance and direction from Temple Square.
• The long and laborious process of building the 170-room Salt Lake Temple began in 1853 and continued for 40 years until its completion in 1893.
• Brigham Young never lived to see the completion of the Salt Lake Temple. It was dedicated by President Wilford Woodruff in 1853.
• At one point, construction was halted and the entire foundation was buried to hide the site from a U.S. Army contingent sent to occupy the territory.
• Pioneers donated their time, skills and materials to building the temple in the midst of taming the wilderness. Many skilled artisans who had joined the Church during its early days brought their tools and techniques with them as they gathered to Utah from England, Wales, Scotland, Scandinavia and the eastern United States.
• The walls of the temple are 9 feet (2.7 meters) thick at the base and 6 feet (1.8 meters) thick at the top. Each granite block of the walls weighs between 2,500 and 5,600 pounds (1,134 to 2,540 kilograms) and was hauled by oxen, and later by railroad, from a granite quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Temple Square.

Find out how the Salt Lake Temple was a symbol of the pioneer's faith and devotion to the Lord or browse through other LDS Temple resources.