The Idaho Falls Temple

The white spire rising above the Snake River belongs to the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dedicated in nineteen forty-five, weeks after the war ended. It came to define the city's skyline. The modernist design, unusual for its time, features a single central tower without the Victorian Gothic ornamentation of earlier temples.

Construction required rationed wartime materials and took about six years from groundbreaking. The temple grounds along the river are open to the public, though the interior is reserved for church members. For decades, local wedding photographers have used the reflection of the spire in the Snake as the defining image of Idaho Falls.