A location has been announced for South Dakota’s first house of the Lord for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Information about the location, announced by the First Presidency, was released Monday, Feb. 23, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. An accompanying site map was also published.
The Rapid City South Dakota Temple is planned as a single-story structure of 11,800 square feet.
It will be built on a 4.86-acre site at the northeast corner of Mount Rushmore Road and Moon Meadows Drive in Rapid City, South Dakota. Also planned for the grounds is an accompanying ancillary building.
On April 6, 2025, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Rapid City. It was one of the last 15 temples he announced as Prophet, before his death later that year.
Among those thrilled to hear the temple announced was Rapid City South Dakota Stake President M. Troy Nesbit. “We are so happy to have a temple near us and to be able to share this blessing with our community,” he told the Church News in April 2025.
President Nesbit added that local Latter-day Saints would take quarterly bus trips to the Bismarck North Dakota Temple, a five-hour ride each way. “The bus leaves the stake center at 3:30 in the morning. The bus is full and has been for years.”
Missionary work began in South Dakota in May 1883. A branch was established in October 1924 in Rapid City, which is also where the state’s first stake was created, in 1972.
Before the end of the decade, a second stake was created, in Sioux Falls in November 1979.
Today, nearly 12,000 Latter-day Saints live in South Dakota, meeting in about 30 wards and branches.
