Descendants of the pioneers who settled the Bear Lake Valley and built the Paris Tabernacle returned by the hundreds from across the United States to pay tribute to their ancestors at the building's centennial July 26-30.
Pioneers here not only managed to survive the long, harsh winters, but also used much of their vital, short summers in building the imposing tabernacle, located in the center of this southeast Idaho town of about 700 persons.The tabernacle is one of several remarkable pioneer-period edifices in rural Mormon towns that serve as religious centers, as well as monuments to pioneers who prevailed over trying circumstances.
The striking red sandstone tabernacle with its 80-foot tower that looms over this high-altitude valley is one of the first buildings designed by Don Carlos Young, the architect who completed design work on the Salt Lake Temple. The tabernacle, built from 1884 to 1889, stands as one of the best examples of Romanesque revival, patterned after cathedrals in southern France but with a sense of American vigor, said architectural historian Paul L. Anderson.
Attending the centennial events were Elder Hugh W. Pinnock of the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elders Richard P. Lindsay and F. Melvin Hammond of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Pinnock and Elder Lindsay spoke at the centennial program in the tabernacle July 29 by invitation of the Utah North Area presidency. Elder Hammond also bore a testimony at the program. Elder Pinnock is a frequent visitor to the Bear Lake area, and Elder Hammond's mother, Ruby Hodges Hammond, was born and raised in Paris.
Despite its diminutive size, the community retains its will to accomplish the heroic. Centennial activities included the centennial program, a 74-entry parade, a historical musical production, an evening of square dancing, a heritage fair, museum displays, an extensive quilt show, and a historical review. Townspeople also hosted high school and family reunions and a reader's theater.
The events were sponsored by the Paris Idaho Stake (formerly called the Bear Lake Stake). Members from neighboring stakes in Montpelier, Grace and Soda Springs in Idaho, and Afton, Thayne and Kemmerer in Wyoming, all once part of the original Bear Lake Stake, also participated.
"The people of this area have left a lot of hay lying in the fields in order to make this celebration a success," said Paris stake Pres. Richard T. Small.
"It appears the pioneer spirit is alive and well in Bear Lake Valley."
In his address at the centennial program, Elder Pinnock described the settling of Bear Lake Valley as "a sort of a geographic Zions Camp experience, where those early families built and trained and taught their children. They were able to send from here so many to bless the lives of tens of thousands of people elsewhere."
He encouraged members to maintain pioneer traditions. "Are we as loving and cooperative with our neighbors as our early pioneers were and needed to be?" he asked. "Are we as responsive to a prophet's call and to an apostle's direction?"
The tabernacle, he said, "is as beautiful from the east as it is from the west, as lovely to see from the north as from the south."
Elder Lindsay observed that the Church's frontier is now the world. In the Salt Lake Valley in 1849, "when the people were living in log cabins, they were dreaming of the spires of the Salt Lake Temple.
"We need that kind of faith and that kind of energy translated into a different generation," he declared. "I love to see pioneer times portrayed, but I think we need to apply that kind of spirit into the times in which we live.
"We need the spirit of the Bear Lake settlement throughout this great Church, and throughout the world. God bless you for this wonderful remembrance."
In his testimony, Elder Hammond instructed members that "you are still pioneers as the world is just opening to the restored gospel. Our courage is tested, our faith is tried, but our testimonies still resound because of those who went before us. Let us be proud of that. Let us go on as they did, and spread the word of Christ to all the world."
Owen S. Rich, a great-grandson of Bear Lake colonizer, Apostle Charles C. Rich, was adviser to James B. and Tara S. Parker, co-chairmen of the centennial. At the centennial program, Rich said the pioneers arrived in September 1863, as the first winter frosts were beginning, with no time to prepare for winter. They came late in the season and traveled quietly to avoid notice of unfriendly federal officials. These officials wanted to restrict such settlements, he said.
Apostle Rich, who had recently helped found San Bernardino, Calif., had twice declined President Brigham Young's suggestion that he settle the "Bear River Lake Valley" area.
However, when he was officially called, he became the leader that anchored the settlement. A few seasons later, when discouraged settlers requested him to abandon the notion of settling such a forbidding country, he told them they were free to go, but "I must stay here, even if I stay alone. President Young called me here, and here I will remain 'till he releases me."
The trials of the settlers were illustrated by Eldon C. Kimball, descendant of first Bear Lake Stake Pres. David P. Kimball. Speaking at the historical review on July 30, he said that when his ancestor left the settlement, he'd lost his first wife, their first child, his fortune of $100,000, and even his hair. Kimball later was a founding settler of Mesa and St. David, Ariz. St. David was named in his honor.
Some of the finest European-trained artisans in the Church, said Rich, had settled in the valley, and Young, the architect, stretched them to their finest ability. They quarried red sandstone from the far side of Bear Lake, and hauled it across the frozen marshes some 18 miles to Paris.
Rich personally remembered one of the tabernacle stone masons, Christian Tueller, in his later years. "I watched him, with failing eyesight, pick up the brick, apply mortar, and put it in place with great precision; you knew you were watching a master at work," he said.
"The windows were of such an intricacy that you would expect to find them in embroidery - a laciness in stone," Dean T. Ward, a local tabernacle historian wrote in a commemorative brochure.
In the tabernacle's cathedral-like interior that approaches temple quality, pillars rise from floor to ceiling, a unique feature in such architecture. Intricate woodwork on the ceiling was patterned after a style used in ships by James Collings, also a Bear Lake area settler and former shipbuilder.
Today, the handiwork of these artisans is as sound as the day they completed it.
