The Extensive History of the Ogden Temple

NOTE: This story is most suitable for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, given the depth and extensive details provided therein.

By Lynn Arave

IT took 40 years to build the Salt Lake Temple, but Ogden had to wait almost 125 years since being settled before it was blessed with an operating temple.

Then, there was the 3 ½ year gap of no temple again, as the structure was almost totally rebuilt, from 2011 to 2014.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve said, "It's not all bad to have a temple closed for a time," at the second re-dedication session of the Ogden Temple on Sept. 21, 2014.

He then said you may not take such a temple for granted and appreciate it more, once it reopens.
Yet, why did Ogden, Utah's second-largest city for well over a century, have to wait more than a century for a temple?

Well, it was simply because it was "Ogden."

Yes, Ogden was that "railroad town" that brought the liberals, the unions, non-Mormon mayors and more into Northern Utah.

Read any old Utah newspapers before the 1970s and it is clear that Ogden was not generally favored by Salt Lake County residents, nor by most General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints either.

Ogden and Salt Lake also competed for many things over the years, from the railroad hub status of the Intermountain West, to the Lucin Cutoff and more.
(Ironically in the 21st Century, it is Salt Lake City that is far more liberal than other areas in Utah.)

First settled in 1847, Ogden area church members actually helped construct and finance the Salt Lake Temple, which was completed in 1893.

By the early 20^th Century, church members were eager for their own temple.

 Indeed, “Ogden to get temple, Mormons are told,” was a big headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper on Dec. 13, 1920.

Church members at the North Weber Stake quarterly conference were informed then by Church Patriarch Hyrum G. Smith that Ogden would have a temple in the “near future.”

Patriarch Smith mentioned the overcrowding in the Salt Lake Temple and challenged members to be ready for new construction of both a tabernacle and a temple.

 However, in 1921, Church President Heber J. Grant made a special visit to Ogden and left indicating it was not the proper time to have a temple there.

 An article in the Deseret News on May 16, 1921, reported: “A temple site was inspected in this city early Sunday morning by Presidents Heber J. Grant and Anthony W. Ivins, together with local Church officials.”

               Today's 30th Street and Tyler sign, just southeast of Ogden High's stadium.


The Joseph Clark Family had approached the Church about receiving a donation of land, near 30^th Street and Tyler, with just one condition – that an Ogden Temple be erected on the property one day.

This 30th Street and Tyler land already had a religious history: In the year 1890, a Methodist University, dubbed as “Utah University,” was being built at the same address.

The entire first floor of that university’s main building was built by 1891, before financial problems and some national shakeups with the Methodist Church doomed that project.

The land eventually was returned to its original owners, the Clark Family, who then 30 years later wanted to donate it for a temple site.

Talking to Ogden resident Carla Vogel (age 82 in 2014 and who grew up at 32nd Street and Iowa in Ogden), she said her father knew the Clark Family well and always maintained the actual site the Clarks had in mind for an Ogden Temple was on the hill and to the east above 30th and Tyler -- AND actually where the eventual St. Benedict's Hospital would be opened in 1946.

She said that site meant a large portion of the city would be able to see the temple.

(Likely the reason the 30th Street and Tyler address was given in the articles, was because in that 1920s era, there was likely no real development above and to the east of that location. Also, with Ogden High School located in this same area today, would an Ogden Temple there have meant the high school, which opened in 1937, might have been built elsewhere? Possibly ...)

The 1921 Deseret News article also stated:

  “A movement has been on foot for a temple for this city for sometime past, owing to the great amount of activity of Church members in genealogical and temple work and the fact that only limited numbers can now be accommodated at the Salt Lake Temple. President Grant … announced that from $2 million to $3 million were now on application for other purposes and there was no telling when a temple could be built in Ogden.”

President Grant also lectured Ogden area church members, proclaiming that if every member paid a full tithing, many more temples could be readily built, like one in Ogden.

 Furthermore, President Grant identified Ogden’s Lester Park (663 24^th Street, where today’s Main Weber County Main Library sits) as better suited for a temple site.

One of those church planned projects, a Deseret Gymnasium in Ogden, was already on the drawing board, and was completed in 1925.

Area wards were assessed amounts to pay for the Deseret Gym and it was implied that after that debt was paid, a temple would be next to come.

What? A gymnasium before a temple. History does contain some perplexing issues at times ….

More than three years later, on May 7 1924, the Standard reported that the Associated Clubs of Ogden had written to President Grant about trading Tabernacle Square Park (site of today’s Temple/Tabernacle) for Lester Park. Purpose of the trade was to provide “a suitable site for an Ogden temple.”

That proposal was also turned down by the Church.

Again, this illustrates how LDS Church leaders did not favor the area, likely letting the liberal non-Mormons in Ogden supersede the fact there were many faithful Church members residing there too.

In the early 1890s, the LDS Church had actually given Ogden City the deed to the property that is now Tabernacle Square. However, the city decided it could not properly care for the property and it was given back to the LDS Church a few years later.

A report in the Standard on Dec. 20, 1893 stated: “The city gives it up. City Council gives back the Tabernacle Square to the church.”

In 1929, the Great Depression hit and in late 1941 World War II came along -- two other factors likely not in Ogden's favor for gaining a temple.

On February 12, 1956, Ogden did receive a new Tabernacle, the last such new tabernacle to be built in the church (not counting the future Conference Center in Salt Lake).
But not even having Church President David O. McKay in the 1950s hailing from Ogden Valley seemed to help Ogden's temple void very much. 

  Through the middle part of the 20^th Century, Ogden area church members were actually a part of the Logan Temple District and some wards/stakes would charter evening bus trips to that temple in the 1960s.
That was a difficult trip in winter, with Sardine Canyon to traverse into Cache County.

By the mid 1960s, rumors of Ogden having the next new temple abounded.

Sites in North Ogden, northwest Ogden, the mouths of the canyons, near Weber State College, and basically much of the east bench were also investigated as possible temple locations.

Many sites were unsuitable, because they were not available for purchase.

In the end, the three finalists were these sites:

1. Tabernacle Square.

2. The property where the future McKay-Dee hospital at 39th and Harrison Boulevard would stand, across from Weber State University.

3. The top of 9th Street (east of Ben Lomond High).

(Regarding the third choice, Charles C. "Chick" Hislop, former Weber State University cross county/track coach, said that was his father's property. He said his father always relished that his land was in the top three.)

With the railroad industry – previously Ogden’s bread and better business shrinking – some downtown business leaders also heavily lobbied the First Presidency to have the temple built downtown, instead of on the hillside.

That effort was really not required as Church leaders chose Tabernacle Square on their own as the new temple site.

Ogden’s temple location was officially announced on August 24, 1967 for downtown Ogden on Tabernacle Square.

Tabernacle Square in Ogden was designated by Brigham Young when he laid out the city during his first visit there in the fall of 1850.

Brigham Young chose the site for the Salt Lake Temple himself and he also chose the block for a Tabernacle in Ogden, that later became the temple site too. So, essentially President Young chose the Ogden Temple site indirectly.

 The main reason why Ogden and Provo were to receive temples was actually not the reason previously given in church publications.

The true reason was that Church leaders had first planned to simply expand the Manti Temple, which served Utah County and the Logan Temple, that served Weber County.

 It was only when church leaders realized how costly that plan would be – in that grandfathered status’ of those historic temple not being up to current building codes – that they suddenly favored a plan for new temples in both Ogden and Provo.
(Also, the fact that the Church started a building committee in the mid 1960s helped get better consistency and structure in church temples and chapels.)
Thus, it came down to dollars and the Church could built two new temples for far less than it would have taken to expend the Manti and Logan temples.

Emil B. Fetzer, Church architect, was given the assignment to draw up plans for the new temples. 
Brother Fred A. Baker,assistant committee chairman over all LDS Church buildings at the time, said President McKay "lit up like a Christmas tree" when his two counselors proposed an Ogden Temple, instead of expanding Logan.
(Mark B. Garff was the committee chairman and third member of this original church building committee.)
Fetzer was told by the First Presidency that even though the temples must accommodate large numbers of people, the costs must be kept at appropriately reasonable amounts. The temples were not to be as large or expensive as those in Oakland and Los Angeles, but they were to be full-size temples and not to be confused with the smaller temples of limited capacity, such as those built in New Zealand, Switzerland, and England.

In addition, the Provo and Ogden Temples would not have solemn assembly rooms, no multiple spires and no excess footage.
"Austerity" -- plain and simple qualities -- were what the First Presidency wanted in both the Ogden and Provo temples.
In fact, President McKay was very concerned that an announcement of two new temples being simultaneously would be perceived as spending all the church's money. He didn't want to be seen as a "wild spender."

“In describing how the ideas for the temples came about, Brother Fetzer once recalled: “I think this is the only building that I have designed in words before I started to put marks on paper.”

However, Fetzer’s original architectural plans were centered around the traditional “company” temple plan –- that is moving from room to room – telestial to terrestrial to celestial room for endowment ordinances.

Fred Baker said that he was told by the First Presidency in 1967 while Fetzer was in California, that an endowment film for all U.S. Temples was being completed by BYU and that no room-to-room new temples would now be needed by the church.
(Previously a different temple endowment film had been used in just a few temples internationally.)

Baker was to tell Fetzer that all his plans were now outdated and that the two had the weekend to come up with a new sketch plan for the Provo and Ogden Temples.

A large obstacle was Baker and Fetzer had a project over the weekend in London and were both flying there the next day.

The pair met up in New York and boarded a plane to London.
Brother Baker then told Emil Fetzer about the change in plans, which put three months of work and his sketches into the garbage can. 

Baker recalled the odd thing about that flight was that dinner was ready to serve almost immediately after the flight started, instead of later.

After dinner, Baker gave Fetzer the bad news about his outdated temple plans and the 2 began laying out papers on the dinner trays to try and sketch out a workable temple.

A stewardess saw their haphazard office and pointed out that the large serving table at the back of the plan was open, since dinner had been served so early. The two men moved back there and began sketching.

They drew a celestial room in the center, surrounded by 6 endowment rooms and then kept doing the math for hours to see how all 6 rooms could operate without conflicts.

“It was the biggest mess you ever saw,” Baker told me. “It was comical,” how we worked through the night.

“Emil was the architect, all I worked on was the space and timing“ Baker said.
20 minutes before touchdown in London, they had a workable plan.
(Fetzer was influenced in his interior temple design by a park in Copenhagen that was designed with what was called a Danish ellipse.)

Now that’s what you could call a “plan made on the fly” literally – as the Ogden/Provo Temple design came during an overseas flight.
Because of President McKay's directive to save money, Brother Baker admitted the building committee didn't spend as much time being concerned over the interior of the building.
Jim Seely has provided yet another insight into why the Ogden and Provo temples were designed the way they were. He said that Keith W. Wilcox told him that Emil Fetzer based some of the design for the exterior of those temples on Exodus 13:21, which states" "The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way and in a pillar of light by night ..."
Thus, the white facade of the Temples was the white cloud and the golden spire was lighted at night to represent a pillar of fire.

In the fall of 1967, some excited Church members emptied piggy banks, postponed vacations and cutback on Christmas gifts that year, all to donate to the new temple’s construction.

(Before April of 1982, many construction costs in the church came from stake and ward building assessments. From then, the church’s general fund paid for church building costs.)

The drawings for the Ogden Temple were approved in early 1968. According to the LDS Church News of Feb. 3, 1968, completion of the temple was originally planned sometime in 1970. However, that was not to be.
Underground water problems, in particular, delayed construction.
The new Ogden temple site was finally dedicated on September 8, 1969 by President Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Alvin R. Dyer. The groundbreaking was held the same day as President McKay’s 96^th birthday), with Elder Hugh B. Brown turning over the first shovel of dirt.
"This temple is being built because the Lord wants it built," President N. Eldon Tanner, stated in the Sept. 12, 1970 LDS Church News.
However, there was one big casualty to the original Ogden Temple – the old Pioneer Tabernacle had to go. To make room for a temple, this historic structure was torn down in late summer of 1971.

The 116-year-old building, on the Southeast corner of the Tabernacle Block, dated back to 1855 and had been remodeled several times, extensively in 1896 and again in 1966.

That pioneer building was it was so close to the sidewalk on the south side of tabernacle Square, that if someone was asked to speak extemporaneously and they happen to be sitting in the rear of that Tabernacle, it was far quicker for them to exit the building, travel on the sidewalk and walk in the southeast door instead to the podium. (Thus, it sometimes such such speakers were fleeing the scene though.)

Fred Baker recalled that the Pioneer Tabernacle was a structural disaster and had to go.

“It was the worst example of a building he said. It had no class.”
Sadly, this historic building had not been as well preserved as the Salt Lake Tabernacle and even if its fate hadn't of been decided until the 21st Century, its preservation still might not have occurred.
This building, being used as a genealogical library at the time, was located just southeast of the parameter of today's Ogden Temple and had to go.
Additionally, an old Third Ward Chapel, also still located on Tabernacle Square was torn down too.
The new Ogden Temple had four floors, 283 rooms and soared 180 feet above the ground.

     A copy of Keith Wilcox's rendition of the Ogden Temple, if it was located  along the east bench.

A public open house for the original Ogden Temple was held from December 16-30, 1971.
The temple, which cost about $4.29 million (or about $25 million in 2014 dollar values), was dedicated on January 18-20, 1972, by President Joseph Fielding Smith. However, President Harold B. Lee finished the remaining one-third of one of the dedicatory prayers, when President Smith became too weak from standing so long.
The first Ogden Temple was dedicated inside the Celestial Room, in six different sessions, over three days, January 18-22, 1972. Closed circuit TV carried the dedication services to six other rooms in the Temple.
The Ogden Temple area only included 24 stakes in 1972.

 Notwithstanding the 125-year wait, Ogden still had the church’s 14^th temple (with the original version), which opened in 1972 and was also the first LDS temple built in the State of Utah – Since others were completed before Utah became a state and the first temple built in Utah territory in 79 years.

However, the Ogden Temple came 95 years after the Logan Temple opened and 79 years after the Salt Lake Temple was completed -- an so Ogden area Saints had to wait a long, long time for a local temple.

Even though the original temple plans had included  a gold-leaf state of the Angel Moroni atop a gold-colored spire, that feature was initially eliminated to save money.

Saving money and efficiency were simply the hallmarks of the Original Ogden and Provo temples.

However, Baker said he, Fetzer and Mark Garff, the other Church Building committee member, agreed to make the towers in both the Ogden and Provo Temples still strong enough to accommodate an Angel Moroni statue anyway.

(It would NOT be until 2002, 30 years later, that the church would add an Angel Moroni to the top of the Ogden Temple. A few years later the Provo Temple also received its Angel.)
Fetzer, the Church's last main "architect," designed the Ogden/Provo Temples. However, Keith Wilcox, another Utah architect, is often erroneously stated as their designer. Wilcox was the agent stake president during the Ogden Temple's construction. Hence the confusion.
 The Ogden Utah Temple was also, of course, constructed as a sister building to the Provo Utah Temple, which was built simultaneously and dedicated only a few weeks later than the Ogden Temple, on February 9, 1972.

(Building the two identical temples together not only saved considerable money, but also shaved off about 18 months in construction time on the second temple, the Provo Temple.)
Brother Baker said, "It was temple quality work," he said of the construction of the Ogden and Provo temples. "But we saved every penny we could. They were 'working' temples."
Baker also admitted the building committee spent far more effort on the Ogden and Provo temple's interior, than on its outside.
When the first week's report of temple work statistics from the Ogden Temple reached the desk of the First Presidency in late February 1972, Brother Baker said the Brethren scoffed at the report. They couldn't believe so much temple work could be performed in one temple in a single week.
The Brethren were especially concerned that the "flagship temple," the Salt Lake Temple was being outdone by Ogden.
Brother Baker said he had to take the report back and re-check all the figures.
Then, when he delivered the first full month's report of temple work in late March of 1972, the Brethren were even more skeptical. He said they simply could not believe the Ogden Temple could do more temple work in a single month than in all four of the other temples in Utah combined.
He had to re-verify those figures too, but they were correct as the Ogden Temple ushered in an explosion of temple work.
In addition, the first (and standard) small envelope of names for vicarious work didn't last long in the new Ogden Temple. After a week or less, a box of names had to be delivered to the temple to keep up with demand.

                            Fred Baker, 88, at his Ogden home in 2014.

In retrospect, Baker said the only real deficiency with the Ogden Temple's functionality was in that the fact it generally took longer for women than men to dress for endowment sessions was not figured into the design.
In its early years, endowment patrons did not assemble in the temple's chapel first --- they went straight to the endowment rooms.  So, some benches were added outside the endowment rooms to help rectify that shortcoming.
Alvin R. Allred was the original Ogden Temple's first male proxy for a baptism on Feb. 3, 1972. Naomi Wall was the first female baptism proxy. Lowell Knight performed the first baptisms and Gerald C. Naylor was the confirming priesthood holder. 
Temple workers were trained during February of 1972. 
On March 4, 1972, the first endowment work was done at 9 a.m. That session included 22 brethren and 24 sisters.

In September of 1972, during a routine summer closing extra lockers for both men and women -- patrons and workers -- were added to keep up with unexpected demand.
At the same time, grass was removed north of the Tabernacle and asphalt added to try and keep up with peak parking demand.
The operate the temple initially, there were: 251 ordinance workers, 112 receptionists, 26 buildings and grounds staff; and 13 laundry employees.
The Ogden Temple had also boasted escalators for many years, until their upkeep and grease on white attire equaled their removal.
The Ogden Temple was also the site of many miracles over the years.
For example, these sample stories about the Ogden Temple are contained in the Church History Library Archives:
-One woman, LaVon T. Rees performed initiatory work one morning in the Ogden Temple in its early years. She was asked by workers if she would also do an endowment session, but had not yet taken her morning's medication and had also scheduled a golf game with a friend. So, she went to change clothes. In the dressing room she heard a woman sobbing, but there was no one in sight, or in the dressing room but her.
So, she felt impressed to get her temple clothes back on and do that endowment session. She began shaking and sobbing too, but as she got dressed, a yellow light seemed to come up from the floor and envelop her, warm her and comfort her.
As the session started, she saw the last name of the person another woman was proxy for and it was the same last name as her proxy name. She felt the woman she went through for desperately wanted her work done at the same time as another relative.
-A 15-year-old boy from Boise, Idaho, came to the Ogden Temple to perform baptisms for the dead. He had a restless night's sleep the evening prior and said he saw the name "John" appear as if on some sort screen before his eyes.
As he got into the front, he was the name "John" on the temple's display screen appear and felt comforted that this person was relying on him to do his work.
-In still another miraculous tale, Emeron Wall, a confirmation recorded at the Ogden Temple, seemed to suddenly go into a trance, while checking off names. He did not respond to anyone's voice.
When another temple worker touched him on the shoulder, he finally reacted and said he was OK. He said he saw a vision before his desk, of a beautiful women dressed in all white hovering above the ground. "Brother Wall, they had missed me," she said.
Brother Wall double checked his list and indeed one woman's name was not checked off.
Undoubtedly many such unrecorded miracles happened daily in the temple.
Another shortcoming to the Ogden Temple was itslow rate of attracting weddings. The unusual look of the outside of the temple, the lack of photogenic grounds and a dilapidated downtown Ogden likely all contributed to that weakness.
Still, the original Ogden Temple also lacked a wedding waiting room, something the new temple does have.
On February 17, 2011, the Church announced that the Ogden Utah Temple block would undergo a complete overhaul.
That meant short of a temple that had been destroyed by fire or mother nature, the Ogden Temple would be the first temple to be virtually totally rebuilt for other reasons.
This overhaul also meant that the historic Miles Goodyear Cabin -- the oldest building in Utah -- and the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers building both needed to be moved off Tabernacle Square, to a site a few blocks west.

Why the original Ogden Temple need to be renovated at all?

It was an existing temple that had become somewhat outdated,” according to Elder William R. Walker of the Quorums of the Seventy and executive director of the LDS Church's Temple Department.

Regarding the decision to redo the Ogden Temple, Elder Walker also said in a telephone conversation, “The First Presidency decided to do it.”

He also said the temple needed a lot of work and so a superficial remodel soon became turned into a full-fledged rebuild project.

Also, perhaps because of a combination of the downtown location and its space age design, the Ogden Utah Temple also never attracted a substantial number of weddings, like other Utah temples did.

It is hoped this temple will do so.

Sadly, the reason for timing of the tear down of the Ogden Temple was just a few months after Emil Fetzer, the architect had died.
That was the church’s plan to do so all along, independent of anything else – including the completion of the Brigham City Temple first. Once its architect was gone, so was the temple. The Brethren made this decision to tear down the Ogden Temple -- once Fetzer had passed on -- some six years earlier in about 2005, according to Baker.

The last operating day of the original Ogden Temple was Saturday, April 2, 2011.

Renovation of the temple was supposed to last just 18 months to two years, but the project required three years and about three months.

Much of the 16-month delay came from underground parking construction that had to deal with a large underground water problem. 

The former head groundskeeper of the original Ogden Temple and others, like veteran subcontractors, who helped build the Original Ogden Temple, had warned the Church and the contractor of that underground water problem, but neither would listen or take that problem seriously.
(So, the morale here is not that mistakes are not made by church members/leaders, but that the miracle is that notwithstanding such mistakes, the Lord's work still manages to go forward.)
It was only when the underground parking construction hit high gear that the underground water problem was acknowledged, and months of delays were faced.

In addition, Elder Walker said “it was a more complicated project than originally thought,” to redo the Ogden Temple.

Like most any home remodeling project, he said it became more complicated and lengthy that originally hoped for.

The revamped temple does feature the same Angel Moroni statue that was there before, refurbished and returned. It also still includes six ordinance rooms, same as before, though some are smaller in size.
The only portion of the original Ogden Temple left intact are the cornerstone and time capsule. Those were disturbed as little as possible.
(The cornerstone of the Ogden Temple's time capsule is a copper sealed box that is 31 X 24 X 8 inches in size. It includes photographs of LDS Church leaders at the time and also of area stake presidents. In addition, it includes a picture of the U.S. President, Richard M. Nixon, as well as newspapers and other historical items of the era.)
It was not any seismic deficiencies that meant the Ogden Temple had to be rebuilt. Sure it was re-built with strong codes in mind, but if the Ogden Temple was so deficit in earthquake readiness, then how can anyone explain the far greater such seismic faults in Utah's historic temples -- Salt Lake, Logan, Manti and St. George?
Elder Walker said the brethren don’t like throwing out dollar figures these days, so he declined to provide any dollar costs.

And, given the scope of the old Ogden Temple being so outdated and needing remodeling, it is likely only a matter of a few years before its sister, the same-aged Provo Temple, receives a major makeover too.
The interior of the rebuilt Ogden Temple is up several notches in fanciness. Instead of carpet, drapes and white walls. The redone temple boasts marble floors, stained glass and more elaborate light fixtures throughout.
The renovation also included energy-saving heating and plumbing systems, underground parking and a complete relandscaping in the temple block -- with a large reflecting pond on the temple's west side.
The temple also now includes two entrances, east and west side.
In addition, from an architectural and art deco style, the new Ogden Temple parallels parts of the design of some of the Ogden City's other historic buildings -- like the old Egyptian Theatre and the old City and County Building.
However, although the original cornerstone of the Ogden Temple was left intact, it was moved. Photographs of the first Ogden Temple show the dedication plaque and cornerstone on the northeast corner.
The revamped Ogden Temple has the plaque and cornerstone on the southeast corner.
Note too that the plaque on the new Ogden Temple is not the original one. A comparison of the two shows the same exact language, but spaced out differently. The new plaque is also much higher off the ground than the original.
The redone Ogden Temple held a public open house from Aug. 1 to Sept. 6, 2014. More than 550,000 people toured the temple during those dates.

A cultural celebration, featuring music and dance by 

young church members, was also held on Sept. 20, 

2014.
The temple was then re-dedicated in three different sessions on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014.
The re-dedication also included recent parallel work done to the Ogden Tabernacle. That structure had its seating redone, some corner seating on the southwest end removed and other improvements.

  The Ogden Tabernacle during its construction phase and with the steeple removed for good.  


(However, the Tabernacle's steeple was removed permanently, so as not to compete with the Temple's steeple.)
It re-opened for temple work on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. The first few days were said to be somewhat noisy and chaotic, as all new temple workers were manning their sites.
President Parley Baldwin of the Ogden Temple Presidency said at the re-dedication's second session that it was a "magnificent structure" and an "iconic temple."
Elder Holland stressed that the revamped temple is "the centerpiece of Ogden again."
This time around, the Ogden Temple serves 76 stakes of the church. The temple also has about 2,000 workers, as compared to about 1,400 for the original temple.
The original Ogden Temple was simply a landmark in LDS Church temples. Its revolutionary plan exploded a boom for vicarious work for the dead, that continued in future temples.

It was the first temple in the U.S. to feature a film for endowment work, instead of the room-to-room company plan.
At 112,232-square feet, the new Ogden Temple is smaller than the original 115,000-square feet it once had. The temple sits on a 9.96 acre site, between  21st and 22nd Streets  -- just west of Washington Boulevard, at 350 22nd Street.
This temple will serve more than 250,000 church members in northern Utah and portions of Western Wyoming.
What does Fred Baker think of the new Ogden Temple?
"It is wonderful, a fantastic building. It is gorgeous," he said.
Is he disappointing at the temple having to be reconstructed?
No. "The Brethren can do what they want," he said, stressing he supports their decisions.

He admits a "re-dedication" may not be an accurate word, given the scope of the temple's almost entire rebuilding, though.
The Ogden Standard-Examiner also reported on Sept. 27, 2014, after the temple had only been open four days, that "Ogden Temple filled with brides, grooms and sealings."
That was reported to be because many like the new look of the temple.

--Additional History of the Ogden Tabernacle and Tabernacle Square:

The lengthy history of Ogden’s Tabernacle Square reveals a potpourri of events, even changes in ownership and failed dreams for some never-materialized projects.

-The original Ogden Pioneer Tabernacle, on the southeast corner of the block, was began in 1855 and finally opened on Oct. 10, 1869, seating 1,250 people.

-However, soon after the railroad came to Ogden, work began on a new, larger tabernacle and the old one was to be a concert hall. The sandstone foundation actually reached a height of 4 feet before such plans were completely abandoned, for a lack of funds.

 (The leftover blocks were sold or given to nearby property owners and their use was visible in the foundation or steps of some downtown Ogden homes.)

-In the early 1890s, the LDS Church actually gave Ogden City the deed to the property that is now Tabernacle Square.

A report in the Standard on Dec. 20, 1893 stated: “The city gives it up. City Council gives back the Tabernacle Square to the church.”

-Also, in 1890, classes for Weber Academy students (forerunner to WSU) were held in the Pioneer Tabernacle.

-Next, the Pioneer Tabernacle was completely remodeled in 1896 at a cost of $15,000. A county-wide “Tabernacle Fair” helped raise the funds needed.

-There must have still been plenty of open space available, because “Football on the Tabernacle Square,” was a May 2, 1897 headline in the Standard-Examiner. The Gordon Stake and Weber Stake boys teams played for the pennant.

A week later, the May 9 Standard reported a baseball game being held on Tabernacle Square, with the YMCA beating the Quincy Schools by a score of 11-6.

 -In 1908,  a roadway was planned to go through the middle of the Tabernacle Block and then lots could be sold to finance a new Tabernacle. That never came to pass.

 -Some fencing, flowers and shrubbery were first placed around the Tabernacle in the fall of 1911.

-Despite the presence of sporting events on the Square, it wasn’t until the spring of 1913 that the area was fully leveled and made into a park. Some 4,000 loads of dirt were brought in, as the ground level was still low. Grass was planted and water lines for irrigation were installed.

The Tabernacle building itself was spruced up and an electric blowing apparatus replaced the old water-powered one for the organ. More than $13,000 in improvements were made.

 -The April 28, 1913 Standard report mentioned each area stake wanting its own building on the square and that a $100,000 tri-stake tabernacle should be built at the center of the lot.

In fact, a Dec. 27, 1907 Standard article mentioned earlier plans for a $200,000 new Tabernacle. None of that new construction happened.

(However, the Ogden 3^rd Ward Chapel and amusement hall resided on the southwest corner of the square for many years. In addition, the Relief Building, now DUP Museum, resided on Tabernacle Choir for many decades, as did the Miles Goodyear Cabin, with both now moved to 2100 Lincoln Avenue.)

-The original Ogden Tabernacle was a busy place and often, as early as the 1920s, overflow church members had to go to the nearby Relief Society Building to be seated.

-The next proposal for Tabernacle Square was outlined in the March 11, 1925 Standard, where Weber College wanted to create a first-class 440-yard running track, plus goal posts, bleachers and a football field on the interior. (That proposal never happened either.)

Elder Harold B. Lee finally broke ground on July 24, 1953 for a new Tabernacle on Ogden’s Temple Square. The $723.000 building was dedicated on Feb. 12, 1956 by President David O. McKay.

 -Ogden used to have its own, separate “Tabernacle Choir” for many years too.

-SOURCES:  Recorded/transcribed of interviews with Fred A. Baker on Sept. 8, 2014; other interviews with Fred A. Baker by the Church History Department; Articles in the Church Archives; Ensign Magazine Archives;  Ogden Standard-Examiner archives; telephone interview with Elder William R. Walker; other personal interviews.
OTHER SOURCE: Ensign Magazine, January 1972.


-Note 1: Fred A. Baker passed away on December 10, 2015.

-NOTE 2:  The author of this blog, Lynn Arave, co-wrote the official history of the Ogden Temple for the LDS Church, printed in 2014 and distributed exclusively to only a select group of LDS Church members. 

Detailed history of the old and the new Ogden LDS Temples

                                     New Ogden Temple.

NOTE: This story is most suitable for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, given the depth and extensive details provided therein.

By Lynn Arave

TODAY Ogden has a new stately-looking temple that replaced its original temple, that didn't really look that much like a traditional temple (and was just 39 years old when it was torn down .... and significantly remodeled).
The current Ogden Temple really stands out now, especially from the top of Washington Boulevard.

                          Original Ogden Temple, 1972-2011.

BUT WHY did it require more than a century before Ogden, Utah had its own LDS Temple?

Short answer is because it was "Ogden."


Here's the long answer AND the rest of the story of how Ogden's two Temples came about:

(NOTE: Those involved in the Provo Temple will find this history interesting too, since it involves that sister edifice too.)

Ogden was settled in 1847 and was a town Brigham Young laid out, with deep roots in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In fact, gold earned by the Mormon Battalion was used in 1847 to purchase the Ogden area from mountain man Miles Goodyear, who had already settled there.
The City of Ogden was also Utah's second-largest city for well over a century and often competed directly with Salt Lake City economically.
All one has to do is read the Salt Lake or Ogden newspapers of the late 19th and early 20th Century to get a glimpse of 
the competition and hoopla between the two cities. 
Ogden is just 36 miles north of Salt Lake City and today that equates to just barely over a half-hour drive on the freeway.
Yet, in the 19th Century and the early 20th Century, Ogden was a half-day's trip away or more from Salt Lake City, outside of railroad travel.

                            Ogden's railyard in its prime.

Ogden was "Junction city," that key railroad town that eventually attracted the liberals, unions and even non-Mormon mayors into its borders.

                                   Locomotive in Ogden on turntable during 1940s.

(Ironically, today Salt Lake City is much more "liberal" than Ogden.)
Even as recent as the 1960s, many LDS Church leaders in general  seemed to view Ogden as that liberal railroad town and thus a temple there was rarely a part of any serious discussion.
Surprisingly, even when David O. McKay, from Ogden Valley, east of Ogden City, became the 9th LDS Church President in 1951, that equation didn't rapidly change either.
Ogden, or even the greater Ogden area was apparently not suitable for its own temple decades ago.

                                       Logan Temple today.

The Logan Temple, about 44 miles north of Ogden, had opened in 1884 -- nine years before the Salt Lake Temple was completed.
Yet, access to Logan, except by railroad, was a difficult winter season endeavor, thanks to "Sardine Canyon," until 1960, when a new alignment of U.S. 89 through the canyon opened. A significant number of stakes in Weber County were in the Logan Temple District, until the first Ogden Temple came along in 1972.

                    The summit of "Sardine Canyon," looking northward.

 A common practice of many wards/stakes in the Ogden area in the 1960s was once a month to charter evening bus trips to the Logan Temple.
Ogden boasted plenty of its own active church members. In fact, during all of its history the Ogden area had 50 percent or more of its population as church members.
 Ogden area church members also significantly helped construct and finance the Salt Lake Temple, which was completed in 1893.

  By the 1920s, Ogden area church members were hungry for their own temple.

  “Ogden to get temple, Mormons are told,” was a headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper on Dec. 13, 1920.

  Members were informed at the North Weber Stake quarterly conference by Church Patriarch Hyrum G. Smith that there would a temple for Ogden in the “near future.”

  Patriarch Smith spoke about the overcrowding in the Salt Lake Temple and stressed preparation for new construction of both a tabernacle and a temple.

 Then, some six months later in 1921, President Heber J. Grant visited Ogden, stating it was not the proper time to have a temple there.

The Deseret News on May 16, 1921 reported: “A temple site was inspected in this city early Sunday morning by Presidents Heber J. Grant and Anthony W. Ivins, together with local Church officials.”

Why President Grant's visit?
An Ogden man, Joseph Clark had offered a donation of many acres of land to the LDS Church, near 30th Street and Tyler Avenue, for a possible temple.

                               30th Street and Tyler sign today.


President Grant and several other leaders came to inspect the site.
This land, above and east of most Ogden bench housing of the era, already had a religious history of sorts.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner, in 1890, a Methodist University, nicknamed “Utah University,” was under construction there.
At least the first floor of that university's anchor building was finished by 1891, before the Methodist Church had a national financial crisis that halted all such projects.
So, the land was returned to Joseph Clark, who had sold it to the Methodists.
Clark apparently envisioned a future Ogden Temple, sitting on the hill above today's Ogden High School, where much of Ogden's populace could see it.
(Ogden High on Harrison Boulevard didn't open until 1937.)

                The former St. Benedict's Hospital today.                     Photo by Liz Arave Hafen

Later, this hillside section of land became the St. Benedict's Hospital, in 1946.


The Deseret News article reported this on President Grant's visit:
  “A movement has been on foot for a temple for this city for sometime past, owing to the great amount of activity of Church members in genealogical and temple work and the fact that only limited numbers can now be accommodated at the Salt Lake Temple. President Grant … announced that from $2 million to $3 million were now on application for other purposes and there was no telling when a temple could be built in Ogden.”

  President Grant then probably surprised Ogden area church members by proclaiming that if every member paid a full tithing, many more temples could be readily built, including one in Ogden.

 President Grant also went on to single out Ogden’s Lester Park (663 24^th Street, where today’s Main Weber County Main Library is) as a superior Ogden temple site.

  Strangely, one of the planned church building projects that President Grant had referred to was the $300,000 Deseret Gymnasium in Ogden. It was then on the drawing board, and was finished in 1925.
What?
A gymnasium before a temple in Ogden? Yes, that's what happened.

  The preserved facade of the former Deseret Gymnasium today.           Photo by Liz Hafen.

Ogden area wards were also assessed amounts to pay for the Deseret Gym and some church leaders had even implied that after that building debt was paid, an Ogden  temple would be next to come.

 A Feb. 10, 1924 headline in the Standard-Examiner stated: “L.D.S. members looking forward to new temple and larger Tabernacle.”

  “That a temple may be built in Ogden within a few years is the fond hope of the large number of temple workers who are making regular visits to the Salt Lake and Logan temples,” the newspaper story stated. “A temple in Ogden would mean more temple work performed by local church people at less expense, as transportation expenses would then be eliminated.”

                           Ogden's Lester Park today.                               Photo by Liz Hafen.

  But history proves that President Grant was not really that keen on the Lester Park site for a temple in Ogden.
Indeed, the Standard-Examiner reported on May 7, 1924 that the Associated Clubs of Ogden had corresponded with President Grant about prospect of trading Tabernacle Square Park (site of today’s LDS Temple/Tabernacle) for Lester Park.
The said purpose of this trade was ultimately to provide “a suitable site for an Ogden temple.” This happened almost three years exactly after President Grant's initial visit to Ogden to ponder temple possibilities.
  However, that proposal was turned down too.

   As a sidelight, the LDS Church had actually given Ogden City the deed to most of Tabernacle Square in the early 1890s. But, the city decided it could not do anything with the property and so it was returned to the Church a few years afterward.
  The Standard-Examiner reported on Dec. 20, 1893: “The city gives it up. City Council gives back the Tabernacle Square to the church.”)

  Historically, there is also little doubt that the Great Depression, that hit in 1929, plus World War II in late 1941, were also at least indirect setbacks to potential Ogden temple prospects. 
Some 31 years after Ogden received its own Deseret Gymnasium, on February 12, 1956, the new Ogden Tabernacle was dedicated, -- the last such tabernacle the Church ever constructed.
But Ogden still remained temple-less.
 In the mid 1960s, Ogden continued to rank as Utah’s No. 2 city with a population of almost 69,000.

 The actual spark for an Ogden Temple actually came indirectly.
This effort involved the Church’s first-ever building committee -- with an Ogden resident who was one of its three founding members.
  In 1965, the First Presidency approved the creation of its first-ever building committee.

 

                                               Emil B. Fetzer.

Called to that landmark committee were: Mark B. Garff, construction company owner, as chairman; Fred A. Baker, a vice president of Ogden’s Commercial Security Bank, as vice chairman; and Emil B. Fetzer as church architect.

  This committee eventually established planning, structure and budgets to a growing Church that had previously “winged it" on its building projects.

                                       Fred A. Baker

  The committee first got world-wide chapel construction under consistent control and structure.

  Then, according to Fred A. Baker, who was assistant chairman of the Church Building Committee, from 1965-1972  (and who became the Church Building Committee Chairman from 1972-1991), President Tanner called for a meeting with the building committee in his office, and said, "We're very much concerned about the Manti temple and the Logan temple. They're overcrowded. The temple districts are too big for them, and we must do something to increase the through-put of the temples. Would you please go take a look at those temples and see what you can do to increase the size and make them so they can handle their districts better.”

  At that time, the Manti Temple had Provo and Utah County in its district and the Logan Temple included Ogden and Weber County in it borders --  and yet  they weren't built for that scope. They were designed to serve Manti and Logan.
Brother Baker continued to recollect in some taped interviews on the subject of the first Ogden Temple:

“So we went to both temples, and of course, that's where you just tear your hair out,” Brother Baker recalled. “See, the temples are all grand-daddied as far as all the codes are concerned. As long as you don't touch them, the counties and the cities are kind enough to just leave you alone. You couldn't put another wire anywhere in the temple without moving something else: I mean, they've been there forever and they are chuck-full of every violation of every code ever imagined. So you're safe if you leave it alone, but the minute you say, ‘We need to change this,’ or, ‘We need to add this’, then the whole building must immediately be remodeled to meet the current codes.”

  Brother Baker continued: “Well, they didn't meet any of the fire codes. They didn't meet any of the illumination of getting out of the building. They didn't meet wiring. They didn't meet HVAC, they didn't meet engineering, I mean, you name it .... there was another violation right there.

  “So you're faced with literally ... literally tearing the building apart and adding something to it and then re-doing the whole building as a new building. That costs twice as much as building ... it's just not sensible, not practical. You don't get additional space that you need and all of that.”

  “Anyway, we're just scratching our heads,” Brother Baker recalled of 1967. “The only news you got is bad news.  There is no good news. Instead of saying, ‘We have good news and bad news, which would you like first?’, you say, ‘We have bad news and worse, which would you like first?’ It was just horrible.

  “And so we're driving back from Manti, and, you have to understand now, we've had this little bit of success with the budgeting and the new program and putting things together, and surprisingly enough the budget works. Whoo!  Whoever heard of the budget working, you know?  We're feeling bold, you know, we had a success.

  So we said, "That's kind of dumb. We had a site in Ogden, and there's one up by BYU in Provo that somebody has offered. The smart thing to do is, why don't we build a building ... a nice temple in Provo; a nice temple in Ogden; and then you wouldn't have to change Logan and Manti. That would reduce the temple down to the point where it would handle the people and so we could do some refurbishing in Logan, some refurbishing in Manti, and they'd go right on and be just fine. We wouldn't have to do anything more than just refurbish. But then you put the Ogden and Provo temples where the people are, and they don't have to drive through Sardine Canyon every winter and all that kind of stuff. Doesn't that seem logical?”

A new Church study in 1967 had revealed that 52 percent of all temple work, world-wide was performed in just three temples: Salt Lake, Logan and Manti. This also supported the need for temples in Ogden and Provo.
The plan was then presented to the First Presidency.

 Brother Baker further recalled: “So, we're all elated, and they arrange a meeting back in the Hotel Utah, and there are six of us present this time; three of the Twelve, three of the Presidency, and Mark and Emil and I. I don't even remember a secretary or anybody being there. And the Counselors make the proposal to President McKay, and he just lights up like a Christmas tree. Of course, he would, because this is home. Here's his chance for a President to propose a temple in his native country. How wonderful!”

                                     President David O. McKay

”Well, they thank us, and they say they'll take it under advisement. We leave, and we expect we'll hear about this in 1989 or something, they'll think about it for several years.

  “About a week later we get a call back and say, ‘We want to talk about this. Bring the stuff over.’

"At first the Twelve didn’t know where the idea of two new temples came from, and they really were concerned. I don’t blame them, but nobody said anything to us to indicate that we were not to propose temple projects. I thought it was reasonable and sensible. And it didn’t take the Presidency five minutes to approve. I’m used to how the mill grinds slowly, and you put an idea in there and later you would hear something. This idea took about fifteen minutes, and it was approved just that quick,” Brother Baker concluded.

  Fred A. Baker, center back, meeting with LDS Church President David O. McKay
   and other church building committee members, probably  in the late 1960s.

The First Presidency publicly announced that there would be a temple built in Ogden on Aug. 24, 1967.
That first Ogden Temple would open in early 1972.
Brother Baker agreed that much of the delay for a temple in Ogden was caused by the liberal image of Ogden. He said that feeling persisted into the 1960s.

How was the Tabernacle site selected for the Temple?

In Brother Baker's own words:

"Well, it came down to the old traditional argument  the only reason not to use it  was the preservation of that absolutely beautiful, marvelous old tabernacle. Pardon me, it was horrible! I mean, it was the worst example of a building you could ever find to preserve! If you're going to preserve something, pick something nice! That old building just didn't have any class, it had nothing! But anyway, I understand people feel that way about buildings. That's where the argument was. They always intended to use that site except the big ruckus ..." You can't tear down our old tabernacle!" And there were several other sites that I'm aware of. One up Seventh Street, way up high, that from the highway would have been a beautiful site. But, both from President McKay's desire to keep the cost down as much as possible and from the location in town, it was the logical place to go with it," Brother Baker concluded.

-There were 3 finalists for the temple site: 1. Tabernacle Square, a site first designated by Brigham Young himself; 2. The top of Seventh Street site (owned by the Hislop Family and former Weber State University cross country/track coach Chick Hislop said his late father was very proud that his 7th Street land was considered for a temple); 3. Where the McKay Dee Hospital used to be at 38th Street and Harrison Boulevard, just west of Weber State University.

Yet another factor in selection was that downtown Ogden business leaders pleaded with the Church to have the new temple on Tabernacle Square, in hopes of revitalizing a dying downtown business center. With the railroad industry downsizing, Ogden was hurting.

                         Original Ogden Temple Construction.
The original Ogden Temple, according to Brother Baker, was so simple/plain and was the way it was because that's what the First Presidency wanted.

In Brother Baker's own words:

"President McKay has decided that he wants to do this. But he's .... how shall I put it ... he is so terrified that the people will think he's a spendthrift. After the budget thing that we've been through and everything else, now, because that seems solved, suddenly we have the money for two new temples.

        So he is absolutely determined that these will be the most austere buildings ever built. And while we're present; the six of us; he gives Emil absolute, very clear instructions...boy, no kidding about the instructions. There will be NO solemn assembly room. There's one in Salt Lake, one in Logan, one in Manti ... if they need a solemn assembly room, they can travel. There will be NO multiple spires. That is not necessary. A single spire is fine. No multiple spires. There will NOT be any excess footage. He's seen the typical temple where there's footage by the ton, because you don't build a temple on an austere basis, you build it on a magni ... there will be NO cubage, because he's been up there and looked at that forty-foot ceiling and said, "Oh, I'm having to heat and air condition that", you know?

        And so, I'm not kidding, I'm talking about austerity! "You must use [one] plan for the buildings. You can change the exterior panels to be slightly different if you want to make them look different, but the plan ... I'm not paying for two architectural plans." One plan.

        The crowning one of all, there will NOT be an Angel Moroni on the temple. Oh! I made some notes til I got to that last one, then I said, "scratch that last one. You may start out that way, but that angel will fly up there one way or another."

        As we walked back from the meeting, we're all just ... don't know what happened.  As we walked back from the meeting, Mark said to Emil, "Emil, be sure to set those (supports) strong enough to support the angel. We don't want to have to tear it all down and do it again," Brother Baker concluded.

How did the actual plans for the two temples come to be:

In Brother Baker's own words:

"So Emil gets his little staff together and starts working on sketches. We're probably three months in by that time, and Emil and I are scheduled to go to London. But Emil has been in Los Angeles all week refurbishing the Los Angeles temple, and I've been in Salt Lake all week taking care of the building program, and we're going to meet Friday night at the PanAm building in New York and jump on PanAm over to London, and then do the European tour.

        During this week I'm out of contact with Emil; he's in Los Angeles and we're both working. We don't have any chance to talk. Tuesday the telephone rings and Janeal, my secretary, said, "Derek Metcalf from the temple department would like to talk with you."

        I said, "have him come up."

        Derek came up and said, "I've been asked to tell you that the First Presidency has had BYU do a new temple film. We have just seen it, and approved it (with some minor changes), and the Presidency has decided that you're now authorized to use the film domestically."

        Now, we've had film in Europe before because of the language differences, but never domestically. We've never used a temple film domestically. That's all brand new.

        Wow! That's a dramatic change!

        I pick up the phone to call Emil, and of course, they can't find him ... he's off looking at furniture or some such thing.

        The next day the telephone calls and Janeal says, "It's Bruce Smith from Advanced Planning." Bruce was the guy who ran the computer programs for the church. Bruce came to my office and said, "I've just been able to convince the  Brethren that we can now handle all of the accounting in the temples with the computers. There is no longer any need for a temple company."

        Now, up to this point, the temple company was the way you kept track of who got work done, who didn't get work done. And people didn't know that. They just thought the company was counting. Well now, the company is the thing that holds everything up in the temple. How many times I've been in Salt Lake temple, and you're waiting for Sister Smith, and she's got there late and is a little old a dresses slowly, and here's 285 people sitting there waiting for Sister Smith, who strolls casually in and sits down ... you know, that's what a company does to you. It kills you. I mean, efficiency-wise.

        Well, suddenly, in two days, we throw out the company, and we can now use the film.

        Bruce said to me, "Did you ever think what that meant?"

        I said, "Not only have we thought about what it meant, we've talked about it a hundred times the possibilities that could make for multiple sessions, because now, if you can use the film you could program the whole thing differently. Instead of move .... move ... move ... you could have sessions going on all where .... well.

        I'm thunderstruck, and I try to call Emil again, and he's still looking at furniture.

        And so I decide there's no sense of telling him ... it means his three months of sketches are in the garbage can, but we'll let him know when we get there.

        So, I fly Friday morning to New York, and he flies Friday morning to New York, and we get there at 8:00 o'clock at night and get on PanAm, and we're on our way to London. As we get on the airplane, the stewardesses say, "We're late tonight, as you know, so instead of  the food being delivered cold, we had it all delivered all warm, so it's all ready for you, the minute we take off you're going to eat."

        And I say, "Well, I don't want to tell Emil. I don't want to spoil his steak. So, I guess I'll wait until we eat."

        We have a nice dinner, and clear everything away, and then I can say to him now, "Emil, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to know about?"

        And he said, "Let's get the bad news out of the way."

        I said, "Well, your three months of sketches, you can throw them in the garbage can, because it's all changed.

        He said, "What in the world do you mean?"

        So I said, "Well, first of all, we don't need companies any more. At all."

        "You're kidding!" he said. "We've always had companies!"

        I said, "Well, you don't need them anymore. The computer is now taking over the company."

        "Oh! That's great!"

        And then I said, "Next we have a new temple film which is authorized for use in the United States, as well as overseas."

        At first that confuses him a little bit, and he says, "Now wait a minute! What do we need a film for?"

        And I said, "Well, you need it because you're going to have smaller temples everywhere. You're not going to have casts that can do that. It's too difficult: too challenging."

        "Oh yeah", he says, "I can see that. That's going to..."

        Well, anyway. So I said, "Think of the possibilities now. Here's a Celestial room, and now you can put several ordinance rooms around it, on a schedule, so that they operate with each other, not against each other. So you have a central Celestial room, you have several ordinance rooms, you have a veil space, and what we have to do now is get that organized so that it makes sense and works together and not against each other."

        I don't know, when you went to school, did you have to do simultaneous equations? Those equations where you had to solve two things at the same time, and when you got the solution, both answers were right? That's what we were trying to do that night. Emil got a tracing paper out and we're working on these little tiny, silly tray tables; and the nice girl comes up and says, "What in the world are you doing?"

        We said, "We're trying to work on a plan."

        She said, "Well, look ..." back in the good ole' days...plane in those days was a ... across from the galley was a regular restaurant table. You know, the table with two benches, and the girls used that to get the meals ready and everything. She said," We're not using that, why don't you come back and spread your stuff out on that nice..."

        So, geez, we went back and spread our stuff out and we started working ... you see you had to know how many rooms, how many seats in a room. We knew the film length, including the pauses for the tokens. We knew approximately how long it takes to get a number of people through the veil. And so you have all this information, and now you need to decide, "Let's see, now ... how many rooms, and how will it fit together, and the clock's running and we worked and worked and worked and worked, and, of course, neither one of us are mathematicians; we're idiots. It was the biggest mess you've ever seen in your whole life. We had papers and formulas. It was just comical.

     

                               Original Ogden Temple cornerstone.

   Finally, we get down to a thing where we try five rooms ... that won't work. Four rooms ... doesn't come out. You've got conflict in the veil space every time, and then in the Celestial room every time. And we just fuss and fuss, and finally we got six rooms with eighty people in each room, and we start going around, starting a session every twenty minutes to see how it works out.

        Surprisingly enough, it works out, except in the veil space. And we keep working, and keep trying to figure out, "How is that working? It works in the rooms, why doesn't it work in the veil space?"

        And them Emil comes up with the idea. We were going, in rooms ... one, two, three, four, five, six ... and if you went one, six, and then in the middle, and then across, nobody ever saw each other in the veil space. It was just vacant when you went in there.

        It all worked! And by the time we got that figured out, the captain came on and said, "In twenty minutes, folks, wake up; we're landing in London in twenty minutes ." We worked all night long on that one little thing.

        Now, I didn't have anything to do with architecture. I didn't have anything to do with what the temple was going to look like, or be like, or size-wise; that was all Emil's instruction from (inaudible) ... all I helped work on is this little space up here that was key to the whole thing going on, and we believed it would work ... we tried the math a million times and said, "It will work".

        We took it back to the Presidency and they said, "Eureka! Let's go with that plan." And so suddenly we had a domestic temple that had the potential to just totally explode vicarious work for the dead.

        Why no one else believed us, I don't know, but no one else believed us. It was the strangest thing," Brother Baker concluded of how the actual plan for the Ogden/Provo Temples came to be.

Jim Seely has provided yet another insight into why the Ogden and Provo temples were designed the way they were. He said that Keith W. Wilcox told him that Emil Fetzer based some of the design for the exterior of those temples on Exodus 13:21, which states" "The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way and in a pillar of light by night ..."
Thus, the white facade of the Temples was the white cloud and the golden spire was lighted at night to represent a pillar of fire.


According to a document in the LDS Church Archives, the first Ogden Temple cost $4.209 million (that's more than $24 million in 2015 dollars), or not quite double of a $2.5 million preliminary estimate, as published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner of 1968. 

                   Document from Church Archives

  Ogden Temple photograph with President Smith's signature/date. From Fred A. Baker's collection.

       A painting by Keith Wilcox, as if the Ogden Temple sat right by the mountains.



When the Ogden Temple opened the first statistics caused an uproar with Church Headquarters. (The Ogden Temple opened about two months before the sister Provo Temple did.)
In Brother Baker's own words:

 "Well, after Ogden opened for a month, I was in the Tuesday meeting. One of the Brethren , I don't even remember who, said, "Have you had any indication about the activity at the Ogden temple?" and I said "Only that I know it's crowded ... I mean, it's just jammed, because everybody's interested in the new temple."

        They said, "Why don't you call and find out how the work's going."

        I said, "I'd be glad to."

        So I went back to the office and called Derek Metcalf and said, "How's the activity?"

        He said, "Well, Ogden has done more work in one month than any other temple has ever done." More vicarious work in one month. And I think, "Isn't that neat?"

        So I go back the next Tuesday and report. My report is, "You asked for the figures..." and I gave them the figures, (I've forgotten what they were now) ... "Ogden has done more work in one month than any other temple."

        And I thought there would be ... what ... happiness? Satisfaction? I don't know what. I didn't expect them to dance on the table, but I thought they'd be happy about it.

        Silence. And someone said, "That figure doesn't sound right to me. Would you go back and double-check ?"

        I said, "Oh, yeah. I'd be glad to." So I called Derek and said, "Add another week to it."

        He said, "Well, now the Ogden temple has done more work than Salt Lake and all the other temples ... combined."

        And so, I report that. Again, they were just not happy about things. Isn't that odd? Wouldn't you think that was strange?

        As we walked out, Mike, (who was the secretary of the committee) put his arm around me and said, "You seem a little glum."

        And I said, "I'm a little shocked. I thought this was the time for applause, maybe.

        He said, "Fred, you just don't understand. These are the senior brethren of the church. To them the Salt Lake Temple is the flagship temple. In their fondest imagination nothing, no building, no location will ever do more work than Salt Lake. That's just ingrained. It's their home. It's where they meet every Thursday. It's everything to them, and you come in there and say 'That little pipsqueak up in Ogden has done more work than your big ole' fancy temple.' Surely you understand that?"

        I said, "No, I'm the happy little ten-year-old. I was born in Provo, but moved here when I was six months old. I don't know anything but Ogden. Ogden has always been my home. It's a great, neat little town! I grew up there, I went to its schools, I went to Madison, I went to Central, I went to Ogden High, I loved the school system, we had great neighborhoods ... I had fun in our neighborhoods, we enjoyed everything ... it was just wonderful! You know, I thought Ogden was just the greatest place in the world! When they think of Ogden, they think 'They elected the first non-Mormon mayor! That's where those railroads are that wouldn't come to Salt Lake, and that brought all those labor unions here, and all those democrats!' You've ruined my whole day, because I've always thought just the opposite of Ogden, I thought Ogden was a nice place!"

        So that's how different it is. Now I think the attitude would be a little different. But in those days they were not happy that any ... it wasn't just Ogden ... he said they wouldn't have felt quite so bad if it had been Provo because of BYU... but to have Ogden? Oh, that's gotta' be the ultimate problem. So, there you go! Now isn't that strange?" Brother Baker's recollection of the first statistics ended.

                 A photo of construction on the first Ogden Temple in about 1971. 


How did Ogden gain the new temple version in 2014?

The number of weddings were down at the Ogden Temple. A leaking roof and a declining downtown were other problems. Some Ogden leaders and businessmen lobbied the Church for something to be done.
Finally, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley toured the Ogden Temple. He was shocked by the decline of the surrounding area and it was this reaction that put things in motion. The Church wanted to revitalize the area -- and remodel the Temple too.
The only timetable to that was that the original Ogden Temple architect, Emil Fetzer, had to pass away first, according to Brother Baker. 

"The (new Ogden Temple) plan was done six years before Emil died," Brother Baker stressed. 
So, the fact the Brigham City Temple would not be open yet to fill the gap didn't matter. The new Ogden Temple had its own independent timetable.

Sure enough, some months after Emil passed away, the Church announced their new Ogden Temple plan.

  The new Ogden Temple cornerstone and plaque.


Why the delay in completion of the new Ogden Temple"?

The delay in the construction of the second Ogden Temple was from the underground water problems in the area, something that the new designers and contractors had refused to acknowledge from those who were around for the building of the first Ogden Temple. This extra work added almost 18 months onto the process, according to Elder William R. Walker, executive director of the church's temple department, at that time. Elder Walker declined to provide a dollar cost for the new temple.

(The underground water problem is also the "why" there is no direct access from the underground parking to the temple's interior.)

The original Ogden Temple was not much fancier than an LDS Chapel -- very simple. However, the new Temple is notches above that and is very elaborate -- like other new temples.
When Brother Baker was asked if he had any regrets about the original Ogden Temple being torn down and replaced, he quickly said no -- he said he just wished there was some sort of monument or marker somewhere to acknowledge that the original Ogden Temple ushered in a new, faster era of endowment work, with the endowment film and the temple's revolutionary design.

"If I had my way I would have off to the side, in a little alcove, a nice little monument that says, 'This was the site of the original building that, because of the decisions of the Presidency to use film changed...revolutionized vicarious work for the dead and caused the thing to just explode,'" Brother Baker said.

No costs were released for the new Ogden Temple.



SOURCES:  Recorded/transcribed of interviews with Fred A. Baker on Sept. 8, 2014; other interviews with Fred A. Baker by the Church History Department in 2013; Articles in the Church Archives; Ensign Magazine Archives;  Ogden Standard-Examiner archives; telephone interview with Elder William R. Walker; other personal interviews.
(Fred A. Baker passed away on December 10, 2015.)

-NOTE: This history was put on-line since much of this history has not been available to most Church members. The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to church groups about the Ogden Temple history at no charge. He co-wrote the official history of the Ogden Temple for the LDS Church. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net

-Since the Provo Temple has most of the same shortcomings as the original Ogden Temple did, it is likely only a matter of time before that temple too is remodeled ...