Kirtland Temple: The First Latter-day Saint House of the Lord

The white limestone building on the hilltop in Kirtland, Ohio, is the oldest surviving temple built by the Latter-day Saint movement, and for the millions of Latter-day Saints worldwide it is one of the most sacred addresses in American religious history.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was barely four years old when Joseph Smith received what he described as a revelation commanding his followers to build a House of the Lord in Kirtland. Construction began in eighteen thirty-three on this northern Ohio town that had become the movement's first major gathering place. For almost three years, a community of believers contributed every resource they could. Women donated china, crockery, and personal jewelry to be ground up and mixed into the exterior plaster to make it glitter. Men worked through brutal winters on the building's stone and brick structure.

The temple was dedicated on March twenty-seventh, eighteen thirty-six, with an outpouring of religious experience that participants described as the most intense in the church's history. Within days, Joseph Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery reported that Jesus Christ, Moses, Elias, and the prophet Elijah had appeared to them inside the building, delivering what they described as divine authority and keys for the church's mission.

The temple's interior was unusual for the era, featuring adjustable wooden pews and dual pulpits at both ends of the main hall, allowing different orders of church leadership to conduct services from either direction.

Missouri and Illinois beckoned, and the main body of the church moved west in eighteen thirty-eight. But the Kirtland Temple stayed behind, changing hands over the decades. In twenty twenty-four, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acquired it from the Community of Christ, nearly two centuries after its dedication.