Mormons Reconstruct History With Nauvoo Temple

It was almost impossible for curious visitors getting their first peek inside the reconstructed Mormon Nauvoo Temple to resist the building’s tactile enticements.

Hushed crowds felt the urge to stroke the swirling dark wood railings on the spiral staircase, finger the exquisite needlework in the bride’s room or kick the stone oxen under the baptismal font to check for sturdiness.

Many who expected the cavernous halls of a cathedral in the 165-foot-high building were taken aback by the feeling of intimacy inside the temple.

“It was much more impressive than I could have imagined,” said Kirk Brandenberger, a non-Mormon and director of tourism for Keokuk, Iowa, just across the Mississippi River.

“I was amazed how the temple’s massiveness was broken down into small rooms.”

That combination of grand and intimate has been achieved in temples throughout Mormon history, but this five-story building is an especially intriguing amalgam of old and new elements. The temple opened for public tours May 6, and some 350,000 people were expected to visit it over the ensuing five weeks.

The limestone exterior closely resembles that of the original Nauvoo Temple, but the interior space is more akin to modern temples, in which devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make promises to follow Jesus Christ, participate in ceremonies such as marriage and baptism for the dead by proxy, and learn about the purpose of life.

These ceremonies were introduced 161 years ago in Nauvoo, where the temple was the apex of Mormon efforts to transform a swamp-infested riverbank into a religious utopia.

Mormon settlers in Nauvoo began the arduous building project in 1839 under the leadership of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith Jr. and dedicated it section by section as it was completed.

During construction, the temple served as the church headquarters, was used for weekly sacrament meetings and was the site of at least one General Conference meeting. It even hosted recreational events, writes Don Colvin in “The Nauvoo Temple: A Story of Faith.”

After Smith was killed by a mob in Carthage, Ill., on June 27, 1844, his anxious followers hurried to finish the temple so they could participate in spiritual marriage ceremonies that would unite them for “time and all eternity.” In January and February of 1846, several church leaders actually lived in the temple to accommodate round-the-clock ceremonies. A dining room was installed to feed them, and at least one man, Orson Hyde, used the temple as a hiding place, Colvin writes.

As antagonism with non-Mormon neighbors escalated, Brigham Young left Nauvoo with a small group and, within a year, nearly 12,000 Latter-day Saints followed him, forced to abandon their beloved temple. A few loyal members were left behind to try to sell or rent the building. But just as they found a renter in 1848, the building mysteriously burned, probably at the hands of arsonists, causing irreparable harm.

A May 1850 tornado completed the destruction.

The lot stood empty for years, symbolizing the faith’s loss and grief over those early events. In the 20th century, Mormon visitors routinely made pilgrimages to the site to honor their ancestors.

So it was a thrilling moment for many Mormon faithful when church President Gordon B. Hinckley announced on April 4, 1999, the church’s intent to rebuild the temple as a memorial to those who sacrificed to build it.

“There was an audible gasp,” Hinckley said in a recent interview. “There is great interest in Nauvoo. There always has been and always will be.”

The work took 21/2 years, the labor of 2,500 construction workers and volunteers and $30 million, according to the Hawk Eye newspaper in Burlington, Iowa. Hinckley donated a painting hanging just beyond the front doors that his father acquired years ago from a local artist.

The church had acquired a copy of William Weeks’ original architectural drawings, which allowed modern contractors to replicate exact details of size and materials. The location was determined by an archeological study conducted in the 1960s.

The culmination of Mormon temple rites takes place in the “celestial room,” designed to invoke a sense of heaven and where participants are invited to linger in contemplation.

“It was fantastic,” exuded Harold Pratt of Fort Madison, Iowa. “You know that quiet room where they said you could meditate and say a prayer? Well, I did. It was great.”