From Provo Tabernacle to Provo City Center Temple
In 1886, the Provo Tabernacle was completed as a regional meeting place for Latter-day Saints in Utah Valley. For more than 100 years, the building served not only as a religious sanctuary but also as a community event space. Speakers and famed performers entertained and educated in the hall, and hundreds if not thousands ceremoniously ended their college experiences with graduations in the building.
Then in 2010, that all changed when a fire started late at night. All that remained where the stately brick walls. For months, the historic site’s future remained uncertain. In October 2011, President Thomas S. Monson of the LDS Church announced the burnt-out façade would be transformed into a second temple in Provo, Utah.
During construction preparation, historians and archeologists found artifacts from the pioneer era of the site. And, over the next few years, a grand edifice would be erected, perfectly blending the original brick walls with a new structure for a new purpose.
My Visit
If you follow Adventure Patches, you know I love religious buildings particularly LDS temples. My bucket list includes visiting all of them. This is increasingly getting harder as more are built around the world, but it is still the hope. My chance to visit the Provo City Center Temple came when back in the states during the summer.
I took my brother, sister, and father to experience this holy place with them. The inside is just as beautiful as the outside with pioneer Victorian details throughout. But, more importantly, the feeling of love and peace permeates the place. I am very happy I got to visit, and I look forward to more visits in the future.
