Adobe Brick for the Salt Lake Temple

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In the year 1847, the Latter-day Saints first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley The members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were excited to arrive in the new Salt Lake Valley. The barren Salt Lake desert where others saw no promise, the Latter-day Saints saw possibilities. One of the very first orders of business for the Latter-day Saints was a new Temple to their God. After being run out of Kirtland and Nauvoo, they desired to have a temple in their new settlements, to make covenants and promises with their Heavenly Father. The first week in the Salt Lake Valley, the land for the temple was marked, but the process to build the temple would end up taking the Saints 40 years. There are multiple reasons the Temple took so many years to build, just to name a couple obstacles faced: establishing a community, government interference, and the temple materials were all great struggles. With everything the Saints were facing, planning and building the Salt Lake Temple was a great priority, but being in a new land with new materials they were unsure on which would be best to use for building the Salt Lake City Temple. Some of the materials contemplated for the outside of the Temple were brick, Sandstone rock, and Granite Rock. Adobe Brick was the first choice for the Prophet Brigham Young, but the Lord stepped in and a rock was chosen.

In 1852, five years after the Latter-day Saints entered the Valley, Brigham Young called a conference, with Temple building as one of the highest priorities. Brigham, was not feeling well that day, and did not speak much but only set the agenda for the meeting he said: "I have a few texts to give to the brethren, who may speak upon some of the items I wish to be laid before this Conference. . . the first I have noted is a question: Shall we commence to build a Temple next Spring in order that we may receive our endowments more fully? There are many in this congregation who are aware that we do not give all the endowments, neither can we legally, until we build a Temple."

Nothing more was said about the temple until the conference started again the next day when Heber C. Kimball put it to a vote saying: "I do not know whether you have any desire to have a temple built or not. Have you reflected upon it, that we may go to with our might, our means, our substance and with all we have to build a house to the Lord, to build fonts that we can attend to the ordinances of salvation for ourselves, our children, our fathers and mothers both living and dead? What do you say? If you say we shall do so raise your hands."

All hands went up.

"It is clear they will have a temple. Brother Brigham." Kimball reported but that was all that he or anyone else said about it that day.

It was on the final day of the conference when the topic rose again. They spoke of what type of materials should be used to build the temple and agreed that the best materials were required. They believe that the Lord would make it possible, not matter the cost.

Brigham Young offered his opinion at the end of the conference. Brigham was not in favor of building the Temple of stone. He said "I am inclined to offer an chemical argument, with regards to the material for building the temple in our present circumstances." He spoke about all the materials available in the valley with stone, sandstone, limestone, and adobe brick. "Which do you think will last the longest?" Brigham believed that adobe brick was the answer.

Brigham said:

"After time and erosion had worn away the other materials, a temple built of adobe brick would not only still stand, but would would be in better condition than the first day it was built. We have proof of this. Go into Egypt, for instance, and you will find the monuments, towers, pyramids, that were erected in the days of Joseph, and before he was sold into Egypt; they were built of what we call adobies, clay mixed up with straw. . . they had bid defiance to the wear of ages, and they still remain. But you cannot find a stone column that was reared in those times, they are all decayed."

To end Brigham said: "I give it as my opinion that adobies are the best article to build it of."

The Saints were accustomed to deferring to the prophets decision, so the Saints went home believing that the house of the Lord would soon be constructed of adobe bricks. The Prophet did admit that the believed the Temple bricks would be covered with a stone veneer eventually.

Brigham said:

"According to my present views, there is not marble in these mountains, or stone of any kind or quality, that I would rather have a building made of than adobies. As for the durability of such a building, the longer it stands the better it becomes. . . I give it as my opinion that adobies are the best article to build it of. I do not fear the expense, neither do I care what you build it of; only when it is built, I want to to stand, and not fall down and decay in twenty or thirty years."

Brigham did not know that it would take more than twenty or thirty years, simply to get the Salt Lake Temple built. It was a long hard process with lots of learning along the way. Brigham's idea to built a temple from adobe bricks did not stand the test of time, and even as Brigham Young was saying that adobe brick would be the material used, one apostle knew the materials chosen would change. This apostle did not speak up during these meetings about the materials but he was given insight from Heavenly Father that adobe brick would not be what would be used when the time came. This apostle was Wilford Woordruff, who would be the Prophet when this beautiful temple would be dedicated. Wilford Woodruff had a nighttime vision that he deemed a personal revelation from the Lord.

Wilford Woodruff explained his vision years later saying:

"Before we came to the Rocky Mountains, I had a dream. I dreamed of being in these mountains, and of seeing a large fine looking temple erected in one of these in one of these valleys which was built of cut granite stone. . . And whenever President Young held a council of the brethren of the Twelve and talked of building the temple of adobe or brick. . . I would say to myself 'No, you will never do it:' because I had seen it in my dream built of some other material."

Wilford knew the Lord would guide the Prophet to the correct decision and there is no evidence that Wilford interjected his opinions to change the Prophet's mind. Wilford knew that if the Lord desired the Temple to be made of a different material then the Lord would speak to the Prophet.

Stone Temple

The Latter-day Saints had been building up brickyards around the city for the last five years since they came into the valley. They had enough brickyards to build large buildings, it seemed like adobe bricks were going to be a great option for building the Salt Lake Temple.

Stone is harder to deal with, than adobe bricks. The best stone cutters might need several days to cut a single rough block from a mountainside or a boulder; a wagon team would be needed to haul it by ox or horse drawn cart to the construction site. Getting a single rough stone stone from the quarry into a building wall could take weeks! There were many draw backs to to stone and appearance of benefits to using adobe but over time Brigham changed his mind on using adobe bricks.

Brigham Young declared at the pulpit in March 1855:

"We have abandoned the idea of using adobes in the walls of the building, and intend to use granite"

When the decision was changed from using adobe to granite, nobody knows for certain. It is assumed it was made during mid 1844 or early 1845.

The "chemical argument" made by Brigham had not panned out as anticipated. They had done some experimenting with hight of adobe walls to the height of the Temple were impossible to build. Even with a great foundation, being able to handle walls eight feet thick, the overall weight would be more than adobes on the bottom could bear. The options were to change the materials used or scale down the size of the temple to reduce the weight on the bottom adobe bricks.

That is when they decided to change from adobe to granite. The rock used is actually a quartz monzonite rock, often mistaken for granite. The granite-like rock was in abundance in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and more in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This rock had the advantage of much greater strength, near indestructibility even when subjected to extreme temperatures and moisture, unlike adobe brick. The drawback to the stone was that it would take much longer to cut and haul the stone to the temple grounds. Getting the stone out of the canyon was no small feat. The Saints tried to think of different ways to make the 20 mile journey from the canyon to the Temple lot doable. Bringing these great stones down the canyon was hard and dangerous because of their weight. The Saints knew the easiest way to get the stones out of the canyon was a railroad line between two points but that was the most expensive and the cost was too much for the struggling Saints. The Saints settled on building a canal from the Canyon to the Temple Lot. They hoped to have the canal ready by June of 1856, the following year.

Changing the material of the exterior from adobe to granite would postpone the completions of the Salt Lake Temple for years, but this change make the Salt Lake Temple what it is today. Each of these "set backs" taught the Saints more about what they were capable of doing. The Lord was teaching His people lessons through each obstacle and showed them how He wanted this building built. Ultimately each change was a step in the right direction, being led by a Heavenly Father who was teaching His children through each difficulty.

References:

"Forty Years, the Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple" p 58-65