The Salt Lake Temple's Miraculous Inverted Granite Arches

 

This is an 1854 drawing of the Salt Lake Temple’s east side, by Truman O. Angell. Besides the temple, Angell also designed the Endowment House, a school building, homes, stores and other structures in early Utah territory. He also spent time in Britain and France studying those country’s architectural features. (Courtesy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

IT is one of the myths in the Church that empty shafts were inspired to be placed during the construction of the Salt Lake Temple … and that in the future the technology of motorized elevators came along and thus they were easily installed into the Temple.

 The truth is Truman O. Angell, Sr., temple architect visited Europe in 1856, just when elevators were coming into use there. So, he knew about them. But it just turns out that the west center tower in the Salt Lake Temple was a convenient place for two elevators.

(Source: The Design, Construction, and Role of the Salt Lake Temple, by Richard O. Cowan, Brigham Young University’s Religious Studies Center.)

On the Web at:

https://rsc.byu.edu/salt-lake-city-place-which-god-prepared/design-construction-role-salt-lake-temple

However, one miraculous design element of the Salt Lake Temple is NOT a myth – and only in the early 21^st Century -- more than 128 years since the Temple originally opened – has the reality of this amazing architectural feature been utilized.

Here are extracts from a certainly prophetic, April 3, 1993, Saturday morning session of General Conference, by President Body K. Packer, titled “The Temple, The Priesthood”:

“When the Saints trickled into the Salt Lake Valley, all they owned, or could hope to get, was carried in a wagon, or they must make it themselves.

They marked off the temple site before even the rudest log home was built. …”

“In 1853 the cornerstone was set, and ox teams began dragging granite stones from the mountains twenty miles away ....”

“President Young had said when they entered the Valley, “If they let us alone ten years we would ask no odds of them.” Ten years to the day a messenger arrived with word that Johnston’s army was marching west with orders to “settle the Mormon question.”

President Young told the Saints: “[We] have been driven from place to place; … we have been scattered and peeled. …

“… We have transgressed no law, … neither do we intend to; but as for any nation’s coming to destroy this people, God Almighty being my helper, they cannot come here.”

The settlements were evacuated, and the Saints moved south. Every stone was cleared away from Temple Square. The foundation, which after seven years’ work was nearing ground level, was covered over and the block was plowed.

Later, when the foundation was uncovered, they found a few cracks. It was torn out and replaced.

Sixteen large, inverted granite arches were built into the new foundation. There is no record as to why they did that. That manner of construction was unknown in this country then. If someday perchance there be a massive force wanting to lift the temple from beneath, then we shall know why they are there.”

There you go! An actual prophetic design feature in the Salt Lake Temple (and only visible when the entire foundation of the holy Temple was exposed in about 2020).

That’s because all estimated 187 million pounds of the Salt Lake Temple -- the weight of a modern aircraft carrier -- had to be lifted up significantly to install the seismic stabilizers beneath it, to make the sacred Temple earthquake resistant.

President Packer was inspired to mention this fact and sadly didn’t live long enough to see it come to pass, about 27 years AFTER he said it.

How did President Packer even know about the arches (hidden back in 1993)? Let alone mention the temple possibly being lifted one day, which it was...

  (Here's a link to President Packer's talk, if you want to read it in its entirety:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1993/04/the-temple-the-priesthood?lang=eng

Copy of a March 30,1963 photograph in the Deseret News of the east side of the Salt Lake Temple, during renovations, that clearly showed sandstone blocks still present in a sub-foundation.

 --Now what President Packer didn't mention was that when cracks in the Temple's foundation were discovered after the Johnston's Army Event, President Young realized that the red sandstone rock from Red Butte Canyon was not strong enough for a durable temple. That's when granite was used from then on, from Little Cottonwood Canyon. Some of that red sandstone sub-foundation were left in place and a granite foundation was place atop it.

(The sandstone sub-foundation was clearly visible when the church had excavations made along the temple's east side during a 1960s renovation.)

This January of 2023 photograph illustrates how far underground the crews revamping the Salt Lake Temple have gone. The Salt Lake Temple is estimated to weigh 187 million pounds or some 100,000 tons. That’s as much as an aircraft carrier and hence the difficulty in shoring up such a heavy structure, that is also more than a century old. (Author photo.)

 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.