Visitors in downtown Salt Lake City can now walk through the entire west side of Temple Square.
With the reopening of the southwest quadrant, the public can visit the Salt Lake Tabernacle and Assembly Hall as well as the FamilySearch Library and Church History Museum across the street. Landscaping in the area is still underway.
This update on the Temple Square renovation project was announced in a Feb. 28 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. An update on the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple was also given.
3 restored monuments
Three newly restored monuments adorn the southwest corner of Temple Square. Two monuments depict the restoration of the priesthood.
The first, created in 1957, depicts John the Baptist giving Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the Aaronic Priesthood in 1829, as recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 13.
The second, created in 2006, depicts Joseph Smith receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood from apostles Peter, James and John a short time later.
Third, the Seagull Monument — dedicated by Church President Joseph F. Smith in 1913 — is a tribute to the “Miracle of the Gulls.” In the spring of 1848, within a year of arriving in Utah Territory, Latter-day Saint settlers encountered hordes of crickets amid their crops.
“Now everything did look gloomy,” wrote one pioneer, Priddy Meeks. “Our provisions giving out, and the crickets eating up what little we had growing, and we a thousand miles away from supplies.”
After hardship and fervent prayer, thousands of seagulls came from the nearby Great Salt Lake in early June to devour the crickets and save the crops.
When he dedicated the monument in 1913, President Smith said it was “erected in grateful remembrance of the mercy of God” to the pioneers.
Salt Lake Temple renovation updates
As part of the Salt Lake Temple’s increase from 13 sealing rooms to 22, a sealing wing addition is currently being built. Attached to the north wall of the pioneer-era house of the Lord, the wing will include five additional sealing rooms. It rests on base isolators, as does the temple’s new seismically designed foundation.
Finish work inside the historic temple is steadily progressing for the two new baptismal fonts and sealing rooms in the north addition. After undergoing abatement work to remove lead-based paint, the celestial room and adjoining original sealing rooms also have finish work underway.
The renovated Church Office Building Plaza and adjoining Main Street Plaza reopened in January 2024. Around the same time, the Assembly Hall and surrounding gardens and facilities closed for limited renovations and renewals.
Friday’s Temple Square updates come two weeks after Church President Russell M. Nelson announced open house dates for the Salt Lake Temple — from April to October 2027.
In a Feb. 14 social media post, President Nelson wrote, “We warmly invite our friends to come and learn about God’s plan for His children and rejoice in the love of Jesus Christ.”
