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75 years ago
Final preparations were made for the dedication of the Hill Cumorah Monument in Palmyra, N.Y., according to an article in the Deseret News Church Section on July 13, 1935.
The article stated that as many as 10,000 people were expected to attend the dedication, calling it "a pilgrimage for the Church."
Also included was praise for the efforts of Torlief S. Knaphus, a Danish convert to the Church who designed and sculpted the 9-foot figure of the Angel Moroni that tops the monument. Knaphus also sculpted the four plaques at the monument's base that bear the images of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the 11 witnesses of the gold plates and Moroni's exhortation in Moroni 10:4.
A week later, in the July 20 Church Section, Church historian Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, wrote an article that said of the Hill Cumorah, "[T]his spot is one of considerable sanctity to all members of the Church."
President Heber J. Grant dedicated the monument on July 21.
