The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, organized in 1830, was only three years old when church doctrine revealed the need for houses of worship more unique than chapels engaged for Sunday worship. Temple worship includes ordinances intended to bind family relationships into the eternities.

So the church, under the direction of founder Joseph Smith, began the construction of a temple in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1833. That temple would be dedicated March 27, 1836, but the bulk of the church population would soon be relocating to western Illinois where ground bought in the Mississippi River town of Commerce soon became the city of Nauvoo.

The Kirtland Temple still stands but is no longer owned by the church or used as it was originally intended.

Nauvoo is situated on the east banks of a bend in the Mississippi River. In 1840, Joseph Smith chose a parcel of ground slightly less than four acres on a high bluff in Nauvoo for the construction of what would be the church's second temple.

Light gray limestone quarried to the north and south of the city was used to build the Nauvoo Temple's exterior walls. The largest stones were five feet thick at the base and weighed nearly 4,000 pounds.

The temple was approximately 128 by 88 feet with a single tower reaching 65 feet in height.

A baptistry in the basement and other portions of the temple were dedicated as construction advanced and put into use before the entire structure was complete.

The final cost to build the temple exceeded $1 million, with funds coming largely from the tithes and offerings of church members. Volunteer laborers from among the church's membership also quarried the stone and performed much of the construction labor.

The temple's design represents no single architectural style. The exterior incorporated a number of design features and ornaments symbolic of church doctrine regarding the eternities and different levels of glory in the heavens. Best known are "sunstones" atop pilasters on the building's ends and sides.

Threatening mobs forced Nauvoo's inhabitants to flee even before the temple was dedicated, with a major exodus beginning in February 1846. Most of those who stayed behind remained specifically to finish construction of the temple. A private dedication was held April 30, 1846, after most Latter-day Saints had fled Nauvoo and almost two years after Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum had been martyred in nearby Carthage, Ill.

The temple was abandoned when the last group of church members was driven from the city in September 1846. Brigham Young and his associates in church leadership tried unsuccessfully to sell the Nauvoo Temple. Advertisements in area newspapers promoted the temple as suitable for a church or as a school or public building.

An arsonist set fire to the temple in October 1848, leaving only the bare exterior walls standing. A French Icarian community bought the site with plans to renovate the remaining stone structure when a tornado knocked down several walls and heavily damaged others.

Cut stone was scavenged and used in other buildings in Nauvoo and in making curbing along city streets. A few sunstones remain — one in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and another at Nauvoo State Park. Several moonstones have also been preserved. The temple's bell was carted by wagon to the Salt Lake Valley and now hangs in Temple Square, where it tolls the hour.

The church has since repurchased the temple site and more than 65 other historic sites in Nauvoo. The temple site has been excavated so visitors can see the basement. The site is a central feature of the buildings and other historical sites that are part of a Nauvoo restoration project that began in earnest in 1960.