The public is invited to tour the Elko Nevada Temple during its open house, starting this Saturday, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 13, excluding Sundays. The tours begin with a media day on Wednesday, Aug. 27, and invited guest tours Aug. 28-29.
Leading today’s media day tours are two General Authority Seventies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Elder Michael A. Dunn, first counselor in the United States Southwest Area presidency, and Elder Steven R. Bangerter, executive director of the Temple Department.
Elder Bangerter said that the temple is “a place where we more perfectly learn to follow the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to more perfectly serve as one child of God to another, regardless of faith, religion or creed.”
Among those in attendance on this first day of tours was Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and Elko Mayor Reece Keener.
“This temple is not only a sacred space for the thousands of Latter-day Saints who call northeastern Nevada home but also a symbol of the values that bind our communities together through faith, family and service,” said Lombardo.
“I would like to thank the Church for making the decision to locate [a temple] in Elko,” Keener said. “It truly is remarkable. You look at the quality of the stonework, the tile work, all of the furnishings [and] the windows, everything is absolutely remarkable.”
A month after the open house concludes, Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Elko temple on Oct. 12. The single dedicatory session will be broadcast to all units in the temple district.
In conjunction with Wednesday’s media day, the Church released interior and exterior photographs of the Elko Nevada Temple on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
This will be the state’s third house of the Lord and the first in northern Nevada. It’s also planned to be the Church’s 209th operating temple.
The Elko temple’s district will include towns and communities in six of Nevada’s counties, covering approximately 46.5% of the state’s area, or 51,389 square miles.
Design and features
A single-story building of 12,901 square feet, the Elko Nevada Temple has an exterior of structural steel with White Mount Airy Granite stone veneer. It was built on a 5.2-acre site at 2100 Ruby Vista Drive, adjacent to the southeast corner of Ruby View Golf Course.
Throughout the temple, a prevalent design motif is the desert globemallow, a native flower integrated in wood carvings, art glass, decorative paint, fabrics and metalwork. Geometric patterns are inspired by the cultural heritage of the Paiute and Shoshone tribes. Orange, yellow and green accent colors reflect hues in the landscapes of Elko.
Accent pendant and chandelier lighting features brass and frosted-glass materials, with crystals added in the ordinance spaces. The ceilings in the edifice are made of painted gypsum board, paint-grade wood and acoustic tiles.
In the entry and in the waiting room outside the celestial room, wool rugs match patterns in the art glass and decorative paint. Flooring field tiles, resembling stone, are made of porcelain. Emperador light stone is used in countertops and wall bases, while crema ella stone is used in the instruction rooms and baptistry. A lighter stone, latte, is used in the pass-through and the celestial room transition.
This temple and the Church in Nevada
President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Elko, Nevada, on April 4, 2021, during April 2021 general conference. It was one of 20 temples announced at the conference, including temples in four of Nevada’s five neighboring states.
Ground was broken for the Elko temple on May 7, 2022, with Elder Paul B. Pieper, then president of the North America Southwest Area, presiding. “As we watch this temple rise in the coming months,” Elder Pieper said, “may we reach out to God with a greater desire to know Him and love Him and to know and love our neighbors.”
Nevada has two operating temples — in Las Vegas (dedicated in 1989) and Reno (2000). A fourth house of the Lord in the state, the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple, was announced in October 2022 as a second temple for Las Vegas.
Many Latter-day Saints moved from Utah to Nevada in the late 1920s in search of better economic conditions. Early Church congregations in northeastern Nevada began in White Pine County, in the communities of Lund, Preston and Georgetown.
Helping the Church grow in their communities, Latter-day Saints found places where they could meet and worship, like peoples’ homes, an opera house, a mortuary, an amusement hall, a community church, an Elks hall and a Knights of Pythias hall. As their numbers grew, they wished for their own place to meet and worked hard to raise funds for buildings, like the Ely Tabernacle.
Today, Nevada is home to more than 183,000 Latter-day Saints in around 340 congregations.
Elko Nevada Temple
Address: 2100 Ruby Vista Drive, Elko, Nevada 89801
Announced: April 4, 2021, by President Russell M. Nelson
Groundbreaking: May 7, 2022, presided over by Elder Paul B. Pieper, a General Authority Seventy
Public open house: Aug. 30 through Sept. 13, 2025, excluding Sundays
To be dedicated: Oct. 12, 2025, by Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Property size: 5.2 acres
Building size: 12,901 square feet
Building height: 108 feet, 10.5 inches
