Plano Stone Church, RLDS World Headquarters on the Prairie

The modest Greek Revival building off the highway in Plano once served as the world headquarters of a major American religious movement. From eighteen sixty-eight to eighteen eighty-one, this small Illinois town was the center of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith III, the eldest son of the faith's founder.

The sandstone church was dedicated in November of eighteen sixty-eight and hosted fourteen General Conferences of the denomination. The Herald Publishing House operated nearby, printing the Saints' Herald, the church's own translation of the Bible, and the eighteen seventy-four edition of the Book of Mormon. The original pews and pulpit, built by church members from native lumber, are still in place. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen ninety, a quiet landmark along what was once a very consequential stretch of the Illinois prairie.