The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a groundbreaking date for the Vancouver Washington Temple, one of six houses of the Lord for the Pacific Northwest state.
Elder Mark A. Bragg, a General Authority Seventy and president of the Church’s North America West Area, will preside at the Saturday, Aug. 23, groundbreaking event in Vancouver, Washington.
The groundbreaking date was first published Tuesday, May 27, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Temple announcement, site, rendering
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Vancouver, Washington, on Oct. 1, 2023, during October 2023 general conference. It was one of 20 locations worldwide that he identified at the close of the Sunday afternoon session.
Planned as a multistory building of approximately 43,000 square feet, the Vancouver Washington Temple will stand on a 15.11-acre site at the northwest corner of the intersection of SE 20th Street and SE Bybee Road in Camas, Washington, just east of Vancouver proper.
The site was announced Feb. 26, 2024, with the exterior rendering released on Sept. 3, 2024. In March of this year, the Church announced that preliminary work had begun on the temple site, including clearing the land, installing essential utilities and realigning Bybee Road to better accommodate temple construction.
Once completed, this new temple will join the state’s four operating houses of the Lord: the Seattle Washington Temple (dedicated in 1980), the Spokane Washington Temple (1999), the Columbia River Washington Temple (2001) in Richland in the south-central Tri-Cities area, and the Moses Lake Washington Temple (2023). A temple for Tacoma was announced in October 2022 general conference.
The Church in Washington
The Church of Jesus Christ in Washington dates back to 1854, when four missionaries serving in California were sent into the Washington and Oregon territories. Enough converts joined to create a congregation just north of present-day Vancouver along the Lewis River, a tributary of the Columbia River.
Many Latter-day Saints helped with the 1880s railroad construction of the Northern Pacific Oregon Short Line in Washington. In 1930, Church membership in the state totaled 1,900 in eight congregations, with chapels in Seattle, Spokane, Olympia and Everett.
Today, Washington is home to more than 282,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 475 congregations.
