First shovelful

By 1850, Great Salt Lake City, non-existent just a little more than three years earlier, had a population of more than 11,000; new companies of pioneers arrived regularly.

Some of these new arrivals came with little money and applied to the Church for relief. And because Brigham Young insisted that no one be idle, he put them to work building a stone wall around the temple lot, a project completed in 1852.

The temple lot was considered the spiritual center of the city. This stature was reinforced on Feb. 14, 1853, when pioneers took part in an event that was both festive and spiritual: breaking ground for a magnificent temple.

Willard Richards, a counselor to Brigham Young, reported in the Deseret News, of which he was the first editor, that the day was "as clear and lovely a day as the sun ever shone on G.S.L. City, with from one to three inches of snow on the ground in some places. . . . While the people were assembling, they were cheered with the sweetest strains from the Brass and Capt. Ballo's bands."

Soon, several thousand people had gathered and surrounded the staked-off outline of the temple. Brigham Young mounted the back of a small buggy to speak.

"I know a temple is needed, and so do you, and when we know a thing, why do we need a revelation to compel us to do that thing?" he asked during his address. "In a few days I shall be able to give a plan of the temple on paper. . . ."

A prayer of consecration of the grounds was offered by President Heber C. Kimball. ". . . And thus he continued praying and it seemed he knew not when to stop, till his lungs failed him, and he said Amen and all the people with joyful hearts shouted, Amen," reported President Richards.

Afterward, the leadership of the Church surrounded a spot of ground and loosened it with shovels. President Young lifted up the loosened sod and called:

"Get out of my way for I am going to throw this." He held the sod-laden shovel in midair about a minute before the crowd moved back. He then fulfilled his words.

After the ceremony, in true pioneer fashion, many of the members returned with shovels and went to work in earnest. "Much earth was removed that afternoon," noted President Richards. - John L. Hart

(Another in a series leading to the centennial of the Salt Lake Temple on April 6, 1993. Source: Deseret News, Feb. 19, 1853; Essentials in Church History by Joseph Fielding Smith. Illustration by Deseret News artist Reed McGregor.)