Ground has been broken for the Fairview Texas Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt, a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Church’s United States Southwest Area presidency, presided over the ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 21.
Information and photos about the groundbreaking were published Feb. 21 on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
In his dedicatory prayer on the site, Elder Schmitt pleaded, “We pray this will be a place where all Thy children may come to feel a unique outpouring of Thy divine presence, power and peace.”
He asked for blessings to be “poured out upon this community” during and after the temple’s construction. “We pray a blessing to be upon all Thy children in this beautiful community of Fairview, Texas, and surrounding municipalities. We pray that hearts will be softened and that all Thy children will feel of Thy light, grace and goodness that will emanate from this holy place.”
Just as this house of the Lord bears the inscription “Holiness to the Lord,” said Elder Schmitt, local Latter-day Saints can become increasingly holy through God’s help.
“Bless us to emulate the character of Christ — He who is the Holy One, the Prince of Peace, faithful and true, the Light of the World, our Helper, Good Shepherd, refuge from the storm, the strength to the needy in his distress and the High Priest of All Good Things To Come.”
About the Fairview temple
The Fairview temple is planned as an approximately 30,000-square-foot edifice. It will be built on 8.16 acres at 681 E. Stacy Road, Fairview.
This will be the third house of the Lord in Texas’ Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area. It joins the Dallas temple, dedicated in October 1984, and the Fort Worth temple, under construction since October 2023.
On Oct. 2, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Prosper, Texas, one of 18 temple locations he identified in his general conference message.
The First Presidency announced a site location — and a new name of “McKinney Texas Temple” — on Dec. 4, 2023. It was renamed the Fairview Texas Temple on April 28, 2025, to reflect its planned location.
The Church in Texas
Of the 10 houses of the Lord in various stages in Texas, five are dedicated: the Dallas (dedicated in 1984), Houston (2000), Lubbock (2002), San Antonio (2005) and McAllen (2023) temples.
The Fairview temple joins two other temples in their construction phase: the Fort Worth and Austin temples, whose grounds were broken October 2023 and August 2024, respectively.
That leaves two Texas temples in planning stages: in southern Houston, announced April 2024, and El Paso, announced October 2024.
In 1845, Elder Lyman Wight — then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — led a company of Latter-day Saints to central Texas. Missionaries preached in Texas in the 1850s, until missionary work came to a halt before the Civil War, and nearly 1,000 converts immigrated to Utah from Texas.
In 1898, about 300 Church members settled on land purchased by the Church in northeast Texas that would become the colony of Kelsey, about 100 miles east of Fairview.
Church membership in Texas has grown rapidly in recent decades — from 132,000 Latter-day Saints in 1985 to just over 210,000 in 2000.
Today, Texas is home to more than 390,000 Latter-day Saints in over 750 wards and branches.
