The Mystery of the Granite Records Facility

THE Granite Mountain Records Facility in Little Cottonwood Canyon contains what is very likely the world's most extensive collection of family records.

Operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, these vaults are encased in the mountain, located about 20 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

When these vaults, about one mile up the canyon, first opened in 1963, the public was invited for tours. However, by the end of the 20^th Century, they were off limits to all but vault workers. The media were also never invited there, likely after the 1970s.

“LDS buys quarry tract as records repository” was a Sept. 29, 1959 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. The story stated that the Utah Granite Company and Temple Granite Quarries Corporation had sold the land needed for the records vault to the Church. Exact details of the transaction were never made public.

“Church cuts vaults in Granite quarry” was a Jan. 12, 1961 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. The story reported that some 80 years after the Latter-day Saint Church first began chipping and hauling away granite blocks for its future Salt Lake Temple, the Church was back in the same canyon doing other work with the dominant stone there.

Work had started on the project in the summer of 1960.

The Centennial Development Company of Juab County had the contract to do the excavation in the canyon. The company first drilled a 700-foot exploration tunnel, to be followed by larger tunnels.

President Henry D. Moyle, Second Counselor in the Church’s First Presidency, told Malin Foster of the Tribune that the vaults are being built at the safest known place from disasters in the area for storing records. The rock vaults were also considered an ideal location for the storage of records based on temperatures and humidity.

“Drills deepen sanctuary for Church records” was a May 29, 1961 headline in the Tribune. Staff writer Don LeFevre reported that a crew of 14 men were cutting through granite to create large caverns.

“Their environment is a dark, damp and cool one as they labor on the construction of the vault which will one day house millions of dollars worth of valuable microfilm and documents,” LeFevre wrote.

To that date, the drilling was through some 1,800 linear feet of rock and completed channels measure 27 feet wide and 16 feet high. A total of six portals had been drilled into the mountain, on the north side of the canyon, above Utah Highway 210.

(The canyon road leads to Snowbird and Alta ski resorts. The Church has a historical trail just inside the mouth of the canyon and on the opposite, south side, that commemorates the granite quarry when the S.L. Temple blocks originated from.)

“Crews work in LDS ‘cave’ project” was a Jan. 27, 1962 Tribune headline. By early 1962, crews were done drilling and were pouring cement and deciding the best type of flooring, walls and ceiling for this “cave.” Trenches in the floor had also already been made for future plumbing and electrical lines.

This story also stated that the First Presidency itself chose the site for this granite vault records repository.

“Impregnable storage vaults safeguard LDS genealogical records” was an Oct. 6, 1963 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. This Associated Press story stated that the vaults were originally called “The Little Cottonwood Project,” had cost more than $1.5 million, had been more than three years in the making and was slated for completion in about one year.

There were three 600-foot-long storage vaults, lined with 18 inches of cement and corrugated steel. Three large heavy bank-like vault doors covered the entrances. The three main passages were also intersected by three others, more than 400 feet long and all interconnected.

“LDS grants look-see of tunnels” was a Dec. 2, 1963 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. Church leaders first toured the new granite vaults. Then selected civic and business leaders had their turn on day number two; and finally on the third day, the general public got to come and take a look on a guided tour. They were titled "Church Records Vault" when they opened. (Their current title is "Granite Mountain Records Facility.")

The Tribune story stated the inside of the vaults were painted in pastel colors and boasted self-contained power, water and ventilation.

The story also said that the vaults were “buried beneath 600 feet of solid granite.

There have been no public updates by the Church on these record vaults. Presumably, they have been updated and likely contain not only original microfilm records, but likely the cutting edge in records storage, including CDs and other high-tech equipment.

-Similarly, the U. S. Air Force had began work on its own Cheyenne Mountain Complex in 1957, inside a granite mountain in Colorado, near Colorado Springs. That much larger vault was not completed finished until 1967, cost more than $142 million and sits underneath an estimated 2,000 feet of granite.

-The Salt Lake Tribune of Aug. 23, 1967 reported that landowners in Little Cottonwood Canyon had dropped a plan to build a housing subdivision at the mouth of the canyon, in favor of constructing a private facility for microfilm and other storage inside the mountain itself. Located just up the canyon from the Church’s granite vaults, they were designed to be similar to those man-made caverns. Today, they are called Perpetual Storage, Inc., located at 6279 Little Cottonwood Road.

-The accompanying illustrations above are some of the images from a mid-1960s brochure, published by the LDS Church on the Vaults.

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.