SALT LAKE CITY—For the last six years visitors to Temple Square have navigated fences and watched construction as the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is renovated with structural and seismic upgrades. The project is estimated to be completed by the end of the year.

There have been significant milestones marking the steps leading up to the temple’s opening in April. On June 23, another milestone was reached with the installation of the historic doors from when the temple was originally dedicated. 

“I spent many years researching the history of the construction of the temple that predated the actual project,” said Jacob W. Olmstead, historian for the Church History Department. “I started with the department in 2011 and they gave me a sheet of paper and said ‘research the construction of the Salt Lake Temple.’ So many years before the project.”

Olmstead said he worked on it for about five years. “Then when the time came we had all this great research to hand over.”

The doors have a distinctive circular design “with interlocking letters believed to represent ‘House of the Lord,’ a phrase found on all temples of the Church of Jesus Christ worldwide,” a Church release said.

Draftsman Karl Conrad Schaub designed the east doors, (family tradition attributes their craftsmanship to Danish carpenter August Thorup though this is unconfirmed, the release said). “He records in his autobiography that Wilfred Woodruff stopped by his drawing desk and commented to him about his designs,” said Olmstead. “He said ‘make the designs as nice as you can and don’t worry about expense.’”

 This is fascinating because at the time it was December, January so it was like three months before the dedication and they were running out of time and they were running out of money, he said. “It was symbolic of the entire project as a whole. That was a pioneer faith that undergird the entire effort.”  

“The doors are the original oak doors that were installed back in 1893 for the dedication,” said Tom Lindhardt, project manager with the Special Projects Department for the church. “We pulled them off six and a half years ago and they’ve been in storage in restoration and repair ever since.”

They’ve been repaired as needed, completely stripped out of all their old finishes and repaired a little bit with structural upgrades and refinished and now they’re back being reinstalled, he said. “This project has been incredible. It’s a once in a lifetime project and that’s an understatement. It’s been amazing to be a part of it.”

The doors are significant, said Lindhardt. “In the grand scheme of the whole project it’s a small thing to just install a few doors but it’s significant because it shows we’re getting closer to finishing and we’re adding things that the public can see.”

“From April to October of next year we’re open to the public,” said Richard Sutton, senior director in the Temple Department over the Salt Lake Temple Celebration. “We’re using all of this time and have been for the last couple of years with hundreds of people from every department within the church and then also hiring vendors that are experts in their field to come and help.”

Obviously, the pinnacle will be the Salt Lake Temple Open House Tour but the celebration includes far more than that, he said. “We’ve got Temple Square so we’ll have dozens of other opportunities, exhibits and experiences that will all be throughout. So it’s really a celebration in addition to the open house.”

Sutton said they are expecting millions upon millions of visitors. “We really want to invite the world to come. Next year it’s 134 years so it’s just an incredible opportunity. It will just be a once in a generation kind of opportunity. We want to open the doors, invite everyone in to learn about what happens in a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”