Temples

While visiting with the kids, Joe and I had the opportunity of attending the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House on Friday, July 3rd. This was my second open house and Joe's first. On our return trip home, we discovered there was even a small temple in Vernal that we stopped by to see.The Vernal Utah Temple was the first temple built from an existing building—the Uintah Stake Tabernacle. A modern temple was built within the shell of the gutted tabernacle, which had fallen into serious disrepair and had not hosted a stake conference since 1983. The Vernal Utah Temple was the tenth temple built in Utah.

At the dedication of the Uintah Stake Tabernacle on August 24, 1907, President Joseph F. Smith's words would prove prophetic when he said he "would not be surprised if the day would come when a temple would be built in your own midst here."

The Vernal Utah Temple is labeled 1907 and 1997, indicating the two years when the building was dedicated—first as a tabernacle and then as a temple. The idea of converting the Uintah Stake Tabernacle into the Vernal Utah Temple was first proposed by leaders of the Vernal Utah Glines Stake to area authorities in 1984, but the proposal was eventually rejected by the First Presidency. Many other possibilities were pursued, and the building had even been put up for sale for a time. However, in 1993, the idea of a temple was proposed again. This time, it met with First Presidency approval.

The Reader Home, a turn-of-the-century residence in Vernal, became the source of thousands of needed replacement bricks for the Vernal Utah Temple. The owner, a friend of another faith who planned to raze the home, agreed to donate it to the church instead. For two months, 16,000 bricks were painstakingly removed from the home and brought to the temple.

The old dome of the Uintah Stake Tabernacle was removed and renovated into a gazebo, located at the Ashley Valley Community Park. The Vernal Utah Temple was given two domes instead of one, as was featured on the tabernacle.

The eastern dome of the Vernal Utah Temple features a gold-leafed angel Moroni statue added on September 16, 1996. In an experiment, the statue had originally been painted gold. After four months, however, it was decided that the statue should be given the traditional finish of gold leaf.

The Vernal Utah Temple was dedicated in 1997.