The Jordan River Utah Temple.
What follows is the little known, miraculous backstory on how this temple came to be; how it defied standard church policy; and how it is the only temple that was financed entirely outside of Church resources.
All material comes from interviews made with Fred Baker, former head of Church Physical Facilities, in the late 20th Century.
Church members in the South Jordan area desperately wanted their own temple.
The Salt Lake Temple was 17 miles distant and that equaled almost a 30-minute drive in ideal conditions.
It was Church policy in the 20th Century that you could donate land to the Church, but never with conditions set and what could go there. The Jordan River Temple story was a lone exception to that policy.
“Not one penny of church money went into the Jordan River. Not one penny,” Brother Baker said, in a 2014 interview.
Brother Baker continued: “The (temple) lot was given by my dear friend Alma Holt. That story is absolutely unbelievable, how Alma and his family kept that belief all those years that somehow there'd be a temple on that property out there. They were out there when that was nothing but weeds and radishes. And they kept that thing alive in their family that "there's going to be a temple. I know it."
(That 30 acres of land was still, at the time, three or more miles from any subdivision. The Holt Family had owned the land for about a century and to sell it to developers in the 1970s had a worth of several hundred thousand dollars. Family members over the decades had periodically talked about their property one day being the site of a temple, so that was their dream. Even when the Holts divided the land to their children, their kids all wanted to contribute enough land so the temple dream could still happen.)
Brother Baker continued: “I went out and I met with them and said, ‘I'm sorry, Alma. You can't offer it as a temple site. You can offer it to the church, but ....’ And, so, they finally decided to offer it anyway, but asked if I'd tell the story when I presented it on the Tuesday (meeting with the First Presidency). So, I did, I presented the site and told them the story of Alma Holt.
“So, we concluded the meeting, got up to leave, and President Kimball says, ‘Fred, come here just a second.’ He walked over into the corner, because I guess he didn’t want anybody to hear, and he said, ‘Will you arrange a time for the First Presidency to go see that property?’ For twelve years I had presented hundreds and hundreds of items to the First Presidency, and I never had that kind of request. I said, ‘I’d be happy to.’”
That was just unheard of – the First Presidency wanting to see land like this so urgently.
Soon after, the First Presidency gets a look at the property, though it required a drive through an irrigated farm field, complete with furrows, bumps and slow going
Several weeks after that tour, Brother Baker and Church Architect, Emil Fetzer are summoned early one morning to meet with President Spencer W. Kimball, who basically said (by Brother Baker’s recollection):
“We’ve decided to build a temple on the Holt property. All of our confidentiality rules are in place, but you need to start work on the plans now. Do the whole thing like Ogden and Provo as far as the interior is concerned, but this needs to be a much bigger temple.” President Kimball wanted 120 seats in each of six endowment rooms and a beautiful steeple on top.
Later, a meeting was held for Church leaders in the Salt Lake Valley and the Jordan River Temple was announced.
All were excited, though some were shocked that it would be on WEST side of the valley, and not the east side.
Brother Baker estimated that if he polled church members on where the second temple in the Salt Lake Valley would be, that 95 percent would have said the east side of the valley!
He also said: “Anyway, the Salt Lake temple district finance committee ... I mean everybody finances, puts twenty - thirty percent into their temple...they sat down and decided, ‘How much do you think it's going to be?’ And I said, ‘Well, the estimate is 15 million. I don't know, because we haven't bid.’
“They (the church members in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley) decided to raise 15 million. Everybody did! And not a penny went into that building! And for years they ran that building with extra money! And nobody knows! Sad! That should be a beacon! Wow!"
How did the church members in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley raise so munch money?
Brother Baker said:
“Some would give up their Christmas. The families said, ‘Let’s give our money to the temple this year.’ Some said, ‘We were going to Disneyland. How about next year for Disneyland? Let’s put that vacation money toward the temple.’ Some put off that nice refrigerator or remodeling the kitchen until the next year.
Now I don’t know, I’m sure there were some sizeable contributions, but normally fundraising like this starts with five millionaires who want this project, so they each put up two and a half million dollars and then expect everybody else to cough up what they can. This was just the opposite. This was the ordinary member, his wife, and two children coughing up the whole thing. Now I’m sure some wealthy people made some marvelous contributions, but it wasn’t the basis. The basis was the member of the Salt Lake Temple district raising the money, and they did. I can’t believe it. I was flabbergasted. That was just incredible.”
Brother Baker said even the First Presidency was flabbergasted at how much money the Saints in the area had raised for the temple. Still, they promised to make up any shortfall.
The next surprise came at the groundbreaking for the temple.
Brother Baker recalled:
“It was just hilarious. I don’t know where they got it, but it was the most gigantic earth-moving machine you have ever seen. They must have borrowed it from Kennecott Copper or something. And when the time came, President Kimball, who comes about to here on me [pointing to his shoulders], had a big hard hat on. They helped him up on this great big, mammoth machine. He started it up, lowered that big front-end loader, gave it the gas, Rrrrrrr, and broke the ground for this temple. It was just so funny.
“Then President N. Eldon Tanner said, ‘From all our hearts, we want to thank all of you. The stake presidents and bishops who are here, please go back and tell your people of our gratitude for their generosity. Then he said [voice filling with emotion] . . . Let’s see . . . I’m trying to think of the exact words, ‘Please tell your people that we have all of the money that is necessary for the temple. We don’t need any further contributions.’
And, about two weeks later, another $700,000 came in … You know, you just couldn’t stop the darn thing. It was like turning on the fire hose!”
Brother Baker concluded his memories:
“Anyway, the Lord opened the hearts of these people. So the biggest temple in the Church as to vicarious work, and most active temple ends up sitting on this site, and the Church didn’t have a penny of headquarters money in it. “ And, he said President Tanner made sure that any extra money for that temple, went to that temple, and none to the general fund. Finally, Brother Baker said, “We had more parking out there than we had at any other temple, and they filled the parking lot and parked on the streets. The city finally came to the temple president and said, ‘We’ve got to do something.’ We had to go buy another fifteen acres and put in more parking, just so we could get the cars off the street.
“Is that a remarkable story? Is that a story about the faith of the Saints in this dispensation? Well, it just hurts me that Alma Holt didn’t get any notoriety, that he had no credit that he deserved. I know he received thanks from the Presidency, and that’s probably all that mattered to him. But I just thought, ‘Gee, that’s a tremendous story.’ And all these people walking around here, they don’t know a thing about it …”
-Fred Baker, of Ogden, was the director of Church Physical Facilities from 1965-1991. He passed away in 2015 at age 89. He was the author’s stake president at one time, as well as a family friend.
-The Jordan River Temple photo is from Wikipedia Commons.
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.
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