ST. GEORGE TEMPLE

In the old days of construction, buildings took longer to build, materials were often hand made, and the art of mass production was no where near being perfected. Unfortunately the world grew up and now days entire buildings can be designed and built in under 3 to 6 months. As a construction superintendent every week I sit in meetings where the primary theme is how can we build faster, not compromise safety, and build cheaper.
The church also has adopted modern construction techniques where instead of designing a unique temple for each city it chooses to build in, they instead use the same basic design, and mass produce the same temple over and over again. The church even defends this system of mass producing temples by stating that the work needed to be done inside the temple is what is most important, and with their mass production approach and smaller standard design, they can build fast and maintain temples more efficiently while increasing the amount of work done on behalf of the dead
Fortunately most of the older temples are still maintained by the church, and one of my favorites is the St. George Temple. The official birth of the St. George Temple started on April 5, 1871 when Brigham Young wrote to Erastus Snow, officially giving the green light for the designing of plans for the temple.
The first step in building the temple was to determine a building site in which to build the temple. Rumor states that Moroni originally dedicated the site for the temple, but the closest research I could find was from a statement published by David Henry Cannon Jr. 1942
David Henry Cannon Jr. Statement: I am 82 years old tomorrow. I am the only living person, so far as I know, who heard and saw what I am about to relate. At the time of which we shall speak, I was a lad of 11 years, all-seeing and all-hearing, and drove a team hitched to a scraper.
Brother Brigham Young had written to Robert Gardner, president of the stake high council. In this letter he expressed a wish that a temple be built in St. George. Also, the Brother Gardner select a few leading brethren, and, as a group, visit sites where it might be best to build the Temple. This they did. Visiting spots each thought might be best. They could not agree, and so informed President Young.
President Young, arriving later, somewhat impatiently chided them, and at the same time asked them to get into their wagons, or whatever else they had, and with him find a location. To the south they finally stopped. "But, Brother Young," protested the men, "This land is boggy. After a storm, and for several months of the year, no one can drive across the land without horses and wagons sinking way down. There is no place to build a foundation." "We will make a foundation," said President Young.
Later on while plowing and scraping where the foundation was to be, my horse's leg broke through the ground into a spring of water. The brethren then wanted to move the foundation line 12 feet to the south, so that the spring of water would be on the outside of the Temple. "Not so," replied President Young. "We will wall it up and leave it here for some future use, but we cannot move the foundation. This spot was dedicated by the Nephites. They could not build it, but we can and will build it for them." ----------- David Henry Cannon Jr.
The official dedication of the Temple site took place on November 9, 1871. A Swiss band from Santa Clara played music for the occasion and President George A. Smith offered the dedicatory prayer. After the prayer the congregation then sang a hymn "Spirit of God like a fire is burning" after which Brigham Young standing on a chair conducted the Hosanna Shout.
Truman O. Angell who worked as a carpenter on the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples was selected by Brigham as the architect for the St. George Temple. Brigham gave instruction to Truman to model the temple after the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples, which he did but also added a castellated Gothic style appearance that he had derived from serving a church architecture mission to Europe in 1856. (See http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/TAngell.html for the Autobiography of Truman Angell)
Teams of horses pulling scrapers started the excavation work. At 12 feet below grade level the workers ran into soft limestone on the north side and mud, water, and sinkholes in gypsum formations on the other 3 sides. The true problem was that they were digging for a foundation directly over a spring. The solution was to design a drainage network that would capture the spring water and route it to another location. The exact same drainage system is in place to this day.
Since the site, didn't furnish a solid foundation, it was necessary to make a firm foundation on which to build. Once the excavation was completed, they filled in the footing and a portion of the bottom layer using volcanic rock quarried from a black ridge west of St. George. In order to set the volcanic rock in place the workers were creative and filled a cannon barrel full of lead, constructed a 30 ft tower and would use horses to pull the cannon up to full height and then release the cannon to pile drive the rocks down below.



At ground level the crews switched from volcanic rock to red sandstone that was quarried from the hill north of St. George. The sandstone brick work went fast and on April 1, 1874 a large group assembled on the Temple Block for a solemn occasion. On this occasion Brigham Young and others met to place a box of records, church publications, and and engraved plate within the southeast corner wall of the Temple. Items that were deposited were: Bible, D&C, Book of Mormon, Spencers Letters, Voice of Warning, 3 Sermons to Polygamy, Plural Marriage, Laws of Utah, Deseret News, and other various writings.
The volcanic rock for the temple came from a quarry that is located by the airport today. Sunny and her mom and I hiked this trail and found the leftovers from the volcanic rock that they left behind. We hauled some rock out of there, and wouldn't you know it when we got back to the car, Sunny not knowing had picked a rock that had drill marks in it from when the original workers were cutting in to the rock. What a great find for us.
The red sandstone quarry is a bit of a mystery. The old people tell me that the quarry is over by the Dixie Red Hills golf course. The internet says that it is where St. George Blvd meets the red cliffs about a mile or so east of the 15 Freeway. If someone truly knows they aren't saying and from my best guess it is over by the golf course. Sunny and I hiked back in there and took some samples of the red sandstone back to California with us. We did get alot of looks from people when they saw us hiking the rocks across the course back to the truck.

The lumber for the temple came from the Pine Valley Mountains, the buckskin mountains in the Kaibab Forest, but most of it came from Mt. Trumbull in Northern Arizona about 80 miles from St. George.
Overall it took 17,000 tons of rocks, one million feet of lumber, 92 interior doors, 6 exterior doors, 50 round windows, 8 extra long windows, 58 long windows, for a combined cost of $800,000.00 to build the St. George Temple.


Letter from Brigham Young to my 3rd Great Grandfather WilliamBringhurst
For me personally, I took great satisfaction that my 3rd Great Grandfather who was in charge of the Provo Manufacturing Company owned by Brigham Young supplied the carpet for the St. George Temple.
Eventually the temple was finished and on January 1, 1877 Brigham Young presiding, Wilford Woodruff dedicated the temple. Maybe at another point in time I will write a blog that goes into all of the experiences that has taken place inside the temple. As for now I would just like to show my appreciation for the countless amounts of hours that the early saints dedicated into the building of the St. George Temple by writing down some of the construction methods that went into building the magnificent structure.