Ten years ago one of Salt Lake City's early religious and social sites lay almost forgotten, hidden behind overgrown trees and shrubbery 600 feet north of a meetinghouse in the Murray Utah South Stake.

Today the site is a park - a tribute to the men who moved granite blocks in the back of wagons to the Salt Lake Temple, and to the women who, following the Church leaders, worked to build a granary and store wheat.Elder Alexander B. Morrison of the Seventy and president of the Utah North Area dedicated the site, on the corner of Vine Street and 5600 South in Murray, as a "sacred place" on Oct. 22. General Relief Society president, Elaine L. Jack, also participated in the dedication.

Part of the park is the former campsite used by the stone haulers who transported granite blocks, weighing between two and six tons each, from the quarries in Little Cottonwood Canyon to Temple Square. Included in the new park is a restored original stone-hauling wagon. Three stones, once intended for the Salt Lake Temple and found along the wagon trail, sit in the wagon. Marks of the rock drill are still plainly visible in the stones.

The granary, located next to the old campsite, was completed in 1878 and filled with wheat that was latter used to help war and natural disaster victims across the world. Today, the old rock granary's exterior has been preserved as closely to its original construction as possible.

"May it ever remind us of those who labored so hard in days past in thy holy cause, and may we, this day, rededicate ourselves to the purposes which they so nobly exemplified," Elder Morrison said in the dedicatory prayer.

Members of the Murray Utah South Stake, the Sons and Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and the South Cottonwood Historical Foundation built the park - called the South Cottonwood Temple Granite Rest Camp Park - to help future generations remember the past.

Elder Morrison said the stone haulers "wore themselves out on a sacred errand."

The women who worked in the granary, should also not be forgotten, he said during the dedication. "May we be inspired by their example of work and self-sacrifice, of charity and compassion," he said in the prayer. Elder Morrison also said the women, wonderful and nurturing, "pointed the way toward self-reliance and by their thrift and industry set everlasting examples for us all."

Elder Morrison called it a blessing to participate in the dedication of a place "which symbolized the service and sacrifice of so many who labored diligently over long years, without fanfare or acclaim, in the hard and humble toil of hauling stones for the Salt Lake Temple."

Elder Morrison said the men's motivation lay in their "deep conviction that the work in which they were engaged, albeit humble and routine, was absolutely essential for the fulfillment of a great and glorious purpose, the building of a holy Temple, the House of the Lord and the supernal symbol of religious devotion for the Later-day Saints."

Pres. Jack said the granary, like the rest camp, is also a symbol of the early Saints' willingness to serve the Lord.

Nearly 120 years ago, in 1876, President Brigham Young asked the sisters of the Church to participate in a program to store grain.

"Relief Society sisters had faith that the Lord had assigned them this temporal task and they set about doing it with vigor," Pres. Jack said. With "faith and nerve," she added, they labored year after year, dealing which such difficulties as weevils, mice and drought.

Craig Burton, Murray Utah South Stake president, said the stake presidency determined more than seven years ago to restore the granary and erect a monument to the stone haulers. "The whole desire of this was to preserve the great history," he said, adding that hopefully now the young people in the stake will have a better understanding of the sacrifices made by early Church members.