Salt Lake Temple Stories: Who Really Designed The Salt Lake Temple??

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Brigham Young, the second Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had led the great migration from the East Coast to the Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake was a barren desert, where the Latter-day Saints saw possibility and others saw a barren wilderness. The first Latter-day Saints came into the Valley in 1847, with thousands following. The Salt Lake Temple was one of the very first orders of business, with the Prophet Brigham Young selecting the place for the temple block, but that is as far as the plan for the temple went for years.

There were many pressing matters with starting and organizing thousands of people, food and shelter were top of the list of priorities. How long would they need to wait for the area to be ready to start building the Salt Lake Temple. The longer the Latter-day Saints were in the Salt Lake Valley the more the Prophet Brigham Young was anxious to get the Salt Lake Temple built. It was January 1853 Brigham knew it was time to talk to Truman Angell about the design of the Salt Lake Temple.

Brigham was known to say he was not a visionary man. He did not speak of personal visions often but when it came to building the Salt Lake City Temple Brigham knew how it should look, because it was shown to him. Brigham had seen the Salt Lake Temple in a vision and after years in the Salt Lake Valley Brigham went to communicate what the Temple would look like to Truman O. Angell, the architect along with his assistant.

Brigham Young arrived at the office of Trumans O. Angell and sat down with Truman and his assistant William Ward and gave them the design.

William Ward recalled:

"The design was formulated in the following manner: Brigham Young drew up a slate in the architects office a sketch and said to Truman O. Angell: "There will be three towers on the east, representing the President and his two Counselors; also three similar towers on the west representing the Presiding Bishop and his two Counselors; the towers on the east the Melchisedek Priesthood, those on the west the Aaronic Priesthood. The center towers will be higher than those on the sides, and the west towers a little lower than those on the east end. The body of the building will be between these and pillars will be necessary to support the floors. Angell then asked about the height, and drew the following vertical section according to Brigham's instructions. The basement 16 feet high to contain the font. The first story twenty-five feet high between the pillars but between the pillars and sidewalls fifteen feet high, leaving room for a tier of rooms above the side aisles about ten feet high below the second floor. The second story like the first. The construction of the roof was left to Mr. Angell."

This was the starting point for the architect, Truman Angell to begin to design the Salt Lake Temple. This vision received by the Prophet Brigham Young was given by the Lord to help these pioneers build this magnificent Temple to the Lord.

With this information from the Prophet, Truman O. Angell was ready to start working. Right away Truman worked out the numbers of the area of the Salt Lake Temple, calculating that it would be 21,850 square feet, it was half the size of the Nauvoo Temple and almost double the size of the Kirtland Temple. With the vertical heights that Brigham gave him, every one of the spires of the six towers would be taller than the lone steeples atop either of the earlier temples. The Latter-day Saints had never attempted to build something so large.

This building was going to be bigger than anything previously attempted by the Latter-day Saints. It is going to be a very heavy building, no matter which materials were decided on, requiring a deep foundation. Angells calculations showed that the foundation would need to "depress into the earth, at the east end, to the depth of 16 feet, and enlarge all around beyond the lines of the wall 3 feet for a footing."

This was the start, and what the Saints needed to begin this great project. They did not know how much would be required of them by the end but they willingly sacrificed much, knowing the Lord loves effort.

With only hand tool, the Latter-day Saints got to work, digging the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple.

In 1854, a year after Brigham came to Truman to talk about his design, Truman had a progressed in the design enough to publish a letter in the Deseret News offering more details about the future temple. Truman was proud of the design he was developing on the page. He said "The finishing touches are quite original." In the article to the Deseret News he listed off the temple's basic dimensions, the composition of the foundation, the width of the walls, and other facts about the temple.

Truman explained:

"These [corner] towers are cylindrical. . . within which stairs ascend around a solid column four feet in diameter, allowing landings at the various sections of the building. These towers have each 5 ornamental windows on two sides, above the basement. The two center towers occupy the center of the east and west ends of the building. . . The east center tower then rises 40 feet to the top of battlements; the west center tower rises 34 feet to the top of battlements. All the towers have spires, the details of which are not decided on."

Truman also shared more details about the layout of the interior rooms of the future temple. He also shared some exterior symbols that would be chiseled into the walls, including the sun, the planets, the moon in various phases and the constellation of Ursa Major.

Truman felt and extreme amount of pressure during this time because he ended with a "prickly" line that warned away those curious and impatient Saints saying "For further particulars wait until the house is done, then come and see it"

Truman had a lot going on with helping the territory flourish, and starting the temple on top of his other responsibilities was a large weight on Truman. Truman Angell, was a valiant servant of God, and did what was asked of him, even though it was trying. The Lord worked through this stalwart man to help bring this beautiful building to life, and what a blessing it is to so many.

References:

"Forty Years the Saga of Building the Salt Lake Temple" by Mark Henshaw p. 65-66, 99