Why the Logan Temple was Gutted in 1976

                                Logan, Utah Temple.

   THE Logan, Utah Temple was first Latter-day Saint Temple to have muraled ordinance rooms for a live-acting endowment presentation. However, where are these pioneer-era pieces of art? 

  Why does the interior of the Logan Temple look just like the inside of any modern temple?

   This blog will eventually answer those questions and many more … First, a sidelight fact: The outside walls of the Logan Temple were originally painted a pinkish, off-color white, so as to hide the dark and rough looking limestone.

   By the early 20th Century, that paint was allowed to fade away and hence today’s exterior look of the Logan Temple. All the temple’s handcrafted, pioneer interior was removed, as well the roof, leaving only the original pioneer walls remaining. The renovation of the Logan Temple’s interior was patterned after the inside of the original Ogden and Provo Temples. 

  The formerly muraled rooms were wallpapered and made ready for all-in-one rooms, that used a motion-picture presentation of the endowment ceremony.

 When President Spencer W. Kimball rededicated the Logan Temple, on March 13-15, 1979, he expressed regret over the loss of the pioneer craftmanship of the revamped inside of the sacred structure. 

  (Note: Much of the preceding information is from the Church News of September 2, 2022.) 

  -There are rumors that a significant amount of the pioneer era murals removed from the 1970s Logan Temple are in church storage ... and could be reused, should the Logan Temple undergo another renovation some day?

   Now, here’s the bombshell – not commonly known information as to why the Logan Temple required such extensive renovation in the first place, from 1976-1979 -- 

  (This information was obtained from Fred Baker, former head of the Church Physical Facilities, from the 1970s until 1991.) 

  The Logan Temple (and Manti too) were both considered for extensive remodels in the mid-1960s, because they were overtaxed and unable to accommodate the increasing number of Latter-day Saint patrons. 

  However, according to Brother Baker, such renovation would have been too costly, as new building codes would have to follow and thus the interior of both temples would have to be gutted.

  Instead, the Church built the Ogden and Provo Temples, to take pressure off the Logan and Manti temples. This idea worked for the short term.

   By about 1974, the Church started making plans to renovate the Logan Temple. Then, a natural disaster struck – The Pocatello Valley Earthquake, a magnitude 6.3, shocked the region, with an epicenter near the Utah-Idaho border. High rise buildings in downtown Salt Lake City even swayed from the quake, though they were 100 miles distant.

   According to Brother Baker, unknown to the Church for just over a year after the Pocatello Valley quake, was that its strong tremors had cracked and broken in two the main support inside the center and upper floor of the Logan Temple, where the Solemn Assembly room was. 

  This damage was not discovered until the temple was closed and preliminary renovations started. The miracle was that the top of the Logan Temple had not already collapsed, from the quake damage.

   (It seems often that the Lord does NOT always stop tragic events, but because of his tender mercies, he does lessen and mitigate their effects.) 

  Brother Baker said when this extensive damage was discovered, the Solemn Assembly room was permanently taken out and to get everything up to code, the entire interior had to get gutted and the roof removed. Keeping the Solemn Assembly room would have equaled a haphazard look and design in the temple and the Church Architect and Church leaders agreed it had to go. 

  Hence, why the Logan Temple is only pioneer looking on the outside. 

  Brother Baker also had this say:

   “If there was ever a time when I wanted three bodyguards and somebody watching my house every minute, it was then, because of the people in Cache Valley. When you touch a local temple, and Grandpa Aaron comes after you . . . You couldn’t imagine the sheets of paper that were pasted on our cars and posted around town. ‘These horrible people are ruining our lives and wrecking our temple’ …But local people hated us for touching their temple, and I could understand that. We never received that kind of response from the local members when we did the other temples. We did all thirteen existing temples, but the Logan Temple was the only one that we got such a negative response on.”

  -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. 

  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.

1917: When the Logan Temple was "destroyed by fire"

                                                           The Logan Temple.

 IT is intriguing how different newspapers reports of the same event can be.

Example: Here are two Utah newspaper headlines for December of 1917:

-"Logan Temple is damaged by fire," Salt Lake Tribune, December 6, 1917.

-"Logan Temple destroyed by fire," Box Elder Journal, December 7, 1917.

  The Salt Lake Tribune story stated that a fire on December 4, 1917 caused $75,000 in damages. The fire had started in a closet under the main stairway, on the east end of the building. Nearby residents spotted the fire and called the Logan Fire Department.

 The Tribune report continued:  Firemen responded and the blaze was quickly extinguished with just one hose. However, then minutes later, a second fire broke out, this on the third floor and threatened to engulf the entire Temple. That fire required the firemen's largest hose and lots of water to put the blaze out. It was later discovered that the closet where the first blaze began contained a main electrical switchboard and that is likely how another fire began, by electrical wires two floors up. The initial blaze was sparked by an extremely flammable mixture of polish that the temple's janitor had left in the small closet. Then, some electrical wires melted on the switchboard and sparks hit the polish and ignited the large fire.

  The Box Elder newspaper stated, "The beautiful Logan Temple was entirely destroyed by fire Tuesday evening. Of course, the walls remain, for they are of stone. Almost the entire interior of the structure was burned to ruins." The fire started at 7:45 p.m., when no one was inside the temple. Damage was estimated at $100,000.

  The Logan Temple opened in 1884 and cost $500,000 then to construct.

 Just over three months later, Logan Temple reopened on March 11, 1918. The Salt Lake Telegram reported on that day that $30,000 were spent on materials, to replace those destroyed or damaged in the fire. Countless thousands of dollars were saved in free labor donated by Church members in Cache County.

-There was also an earthquake that caused significant damage to the Logan Temple. On March 27, 1975, 7:31 p.m., a magnitude 6.0 quake occurred 15 miles southwest of Malad City, Idaho. This quake was felt all over the Intermountain area. Several years later, a close inspection of the Logan Temple during a renovation, revealed that the main wooden support beam on the roof of the temple had cracked in the quake.

  According to the late Fred Baker, chairman of the Church's Physical Facilities, from 1965-1991 (interviewed about this in early 2012 by the Church History Department), this is why the Logan Temple renovation, from 1977-1979, was so extensive. Most of the inside of the temple had to be gutted and rebuilt. Sadly, some spectacular paintings were also removed and never replaced. 

  Brother Baker stated:

  "When they took it (the inside of the Logan Temple) down, we found that the main structural beam had cracked right in two from an earlier earthquake. If you had redone the temple and put the First Presidency and all the people up there on that (upper) floor, it may have totally collapsed. After all that, the Presidency told Emil (Fetzer, Building Committee member), 'Thank goodness you were wise enough to completely remodel the Logan Temple.' But local people hated us for touching their temple, and I could understand that. We never received that kind of response from the local members when we did the other temples. We did all thirteen existing temples, but the Logan Temple was the only one that we got such a negative response on." 

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.

Logan Temple History: Is a Restoration Project on the Horizon?

THE Logan Temple was the second temple in Utah built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was dedicated on May 17, 1884. (The St. George Temple had been dedicated just seven years earlier, in 1877.)
The Ogden and Provo temples were opened in 1972-1973, in hopes of postponing remodeling and expansion of both the Logan and Manti temples. That worked for a few years, but usage of the Logan Temple had surged by the mid-1970s.
Initially, Church leaders considered building a new temple in Preston, Idaho. However, at about 27 miles distant from Logan, a temple there was considered too far away from the Cache County base of temple patrons. A remodel was the only option.
(Note that this account is not intended to be a full history of the Logan Temple, but to just concentrate on a summary of the remodeling history.)
According to information from Fred Baker, head of the LDS Church's building program, from 1965-1991, the Logan Temple remodel presented a special challenge -- temple patrons doing endowment work had to travel from room-to-room to complete the process and each room was a step or two higher than the previous room. In fact, endowment patrons started on level one in the temple and ended up on the third level to complete the endowment. That equaled great symbolism in ascending, but complicated any interior remodeling.
The Logan Temple was a historic pioneer temple and like the Salt Lake Temple, had many, many unique paintings and hand-crafted work throughout the building.
Church leaders decided to gut the Logan Temple and redo it to accommodate the video presentation of the endowment. That proved to be an inspired decision.

Baker said the Logan Temple's main structural beam was found to be cracked in two when extensive remodeling work began in 1976. It was surmised that a past earthquake (possibly from the March 27, 1975 Pocatello Valley Idaho quake that was near the Utah-Idaho border and equaled 6.3 in strength).
Thus, if the temple had simply been renovated, the roof could have eventually collapsed ...
(However, of course, the Lord was not going to allow that to happen and hence the extensive remodeling of the Temple.)
Brother Baker said the Church had remodeled all 13 existing temples during his tenure and only the Logan Temple patrons were upset -- they felt their historic temple was being wrecked. (And, when the remodel ended up removing the entire inside and the roof, with the sky showing above, it was indeed an extensive process.)
(Church Architect Emil Fetzer had looked at saving the solemn assembly room in  particular, but decided just propping that section up would make a mishmash of the rest of the temple -- totally redoing the inside was the only way to go.)
Brother Baker said he felt he needed bodyguards when he went to Logan as Church members there were so upset at gutting the temple. He said there were notes placed on his car and also posters about Logan against the remodel process.
The Logan Temple was rededicated on March 13, 1979. All the pioneer era paintings were gone and the Temple inside looked more like the Ogden Temple than the Salt Lake Temple.
The Church did save two of the large paintings and put them in storage. Others were painting on walls and could not be salvaged.
The good news was that using the endowment film meant the temple could handle significantly more patrons and complete much more vicarious work for the dead than before.
-During a Sept. 8, 2018 sealing in the Logan Temple, the sealer stated that there is a strong rumor that a complete or partial restoration of the pioneer aspects of the Logan Temple are being considered now, though there is nothing definite and no timeline yet.
That would likely please many Church members in the Cache Valley. Although the outside of the Logan Temple is historic, the inside of the Temple is far too modern to match its pioneer legacy.
Would the Logan Temple's legendary original "Gold" sealing room -- and more -- return during a possible restoration? Time will tell.

-Note 1: Why the Manti Temple was NOT remodeled with a complete tear out process, like the Logan Temple had. This was because the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and the Relief Society visited the First Presidency and asked that the Manti Temple only be renovated. Their request was granted and the pioneer aspects of the Manti Temple still remain today as it still lacks a temple endowment film. Obviously too, the Manti Temple's main supports were in better shape than Logan's and had NOT been damaged by an earthquake.

-Note 2: The Author co-wrote the official Ogden Temple history for the Church in 2014 and much of the above information on the Logan Temple was also obtained during that process.

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.

The first call for a Logan Temple: 1873

THE first time it was likely suggested that a temple be built in Logan, Utah was on June 29, 1873.
President Brigham Young, speaking at meetings in Logan, "suggested the erection of a fine Temple to be built on the bench crowning the eastern part of this city," according to the Salt Lake Herald Newspaper of June 29, 1873.
(At the same time, President Young suggested a road be built beyond Franklin to lessen the grade to Soda Springs and Rich County.)
According to LDS.org, the Logan Temple was not officially announced to be built for another three plus years, until Oct. 6, 1876. Its groundbreaking was on May 18, 1877 and its dedication took place on May 17, 1884.