Temple Lot
The Temple Lot is a parcel of land located in Independence, Missouri, which is an important site in the history of the Latter Day Saint movement as the first location dedicated to the construction of a temple.
The land, about in total, was purchased on December 19, 1831, by Edward Partridge to be the center of the New Jerusalem or "City of Zion" after Joseph Smith said he received a revelation stating the site would be the gathering spot of the Latter Day Saints during the last days. Smith dedicated the area on August 3, 1831. Ownership of the property is largely split between two Latter Day Saint denominations: Church of Christ and the Community of Christ
The smaller section of the Temple Lot is an open, grass-covered field occupied in its northeast corner by a few trees and the headquarters of the Church of Christ, though adherents of this sect do not regard their headquarters as a temple. No other structures exist on this grassy field. The larger portion of the property is owned mainly by the Community of Christ, and many prominent structures are located on this land or nearby, including United Nations Peace Plaza, the Community of Christ Auditorium, the Truman Railroad Depot, the LDS Visitors Center, the Community of Christ Temple, a stake center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Six Nations Tree of Peace.
Overview
The city of Independence, Missouri, became important to the Latter Day Saint movement starting in the autumn of 1830, only a few months after the religion was incorporated in the state of New York in April 1830. The movement's founder, Joseph Smith, said he received revelations designating this city as the "Center Place" of "Zion", and many early adherents apparently believed that the Garden of Eden had been located there—including later LDS Church leaders Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, who said he was told this by Smith. Alexander Majors, who was a sixteen-year-old resident of Independence in 1831, wrote in his memoirs:Since Smith never issued an official revelation to the effect that Independence and the Temple Lot were the site of the Garden of Eden, Latter Day Saints traditionally do not formally accept this claim as doctrine. While Smith later issued a revelation indicating a spot named Adam-ondi-Ahman as the place Adam and Eve went to after being expelled from the Garden, he never officially confirmed or denied the idea that Independence had been the location of Eden itself.
Although Smith had designated the Temple Lot site as the heart of his new City of Zion, the Latter Day Saints were expelled from Jackson County and later from Missouri before a temple could be constructed. Ownership of the property later became the subject of court challenges among some sects of the Latter Day Saint movement that arose from the succession crisis following Smith's assassination, most notably between the Church of Christ and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In 1891, the RLDS Church, presided over by Smith's son Joseph Smith III, sued in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri to take possession of the property. It won in that court, but lost in the United States Court of Appeals. The United States Supreme Court refused to review the case.
The Temple Lot is owned by the small Church of Christ, which acquired the land in 1867. This organization made a failed effort in 1929 to build a temple of its own on the property, which has been the only attempt to erect such a structure since the time of Joseph Smith. This body has its headquarters on the site, which has twice been damaged by arson attacks. The Temple Lot church has insisted since about 1976 that it will not cooperate with other Latter Day Saint or Christian denominations in building a temple, nor will it sell the Lot, regardless of any price that might conceivably be offered. Some members of other Latter Day Saint groups have described the Temple Lot church as "'squatters' on the location," but that organization steadfastly defends its right to possess the property as its physical and spiritual "custodian".
The Community of Christ, the second-largest church within the modern Latter Day Saint movement, owns the bulk of the original property around the Temple Lot, often referred to as the greater Temple Lot. This land had been purchased in the 1830s by Latter Day Saint bishop Edward Partridge to be the central common and sacred area according to the Plat of Zion. It maintains its world headquarters in this area, opening its Auditorium to the south of the Lot in 1958, while in 1994 it dedicated its Independence Temple just to the east.
The LDS Church operates an interpretive visitors' center one block east and south of the Temple Lot. It also maintains a stake center, LDS Social Services center, and mission headquarters on its portion of the greater Temple Lot.
Early history
Site selection
In March 1831, Joseph Smith said he had a revelation which stated that a New Jerusalem was to be established in the United States. In June 1831, Smith said he had a second revelation that the New Jerusalem was to be established somewhere on the western border of Missouri, "on the borders by the Lamanites ". Independence is six miles east of Kaw Point on the Missouri–Kansas border, which formed the north–south line west of which all tribes were to be removed in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.On July 20, 1831, Smith presented another revelation on the subject, with more precise details:
"he land of Missouri... is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints: wherefore this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion.... Behold the place which is now called Independence is the center place, and the a spot for the temple is lying westward upon a lot which is not far from the court house: wherefore it is wisdom that the land should be purchased by the saints; and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line running directly between Jew and Gentile. And also every tract bordering by the prairies, inasmuch as my disciples are enabled to buy lands. Behold this is wisdom, that they may obtain it for an everlasting inheritance.
Smith's vision of acquiring every tract of land between Independence and the Kansas border would draw the ire of non–Latter Day Saint settlers throughout Jackson County, including downtown Kansas City.
On August 3, 1831, Smith, Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer Jr., Frederick G. Williams, W. W. Phelps, Martin Harris, and Joseph Coe laid a stone as the northeast cornerstone of the anticipated temple. On December 19, 1831, Edward Partidge purchased, including the Temple Lot. During the purchase, Smith was to reveal: "The temple shall be reared in this generation, for verily this generation shall not pass away until an house shalt be built unto the Lord and a cloud shall rest upon it." Because no temple at this location has ever been built, Smith's prediction that a temple would be reared "in this generation" has stirred debate.
Temple plans
In June 1833, Smith set out the Plat of Zion, which laid out how the community was to be structured. At the center of the planned city were to be 24 "temples" — 12 for the high priesthood and 12 for lesser priesthood. The specific name for the temple to be built on Temple Lot was "The House of the Lord for the Presidency" which had the following description:
The house of the Lord for the Presidency, is eighty-seven feet long and sixty-one feet wide, and ten feet taken off of the east end for the stairway, leaves the inner court, seventy-eight feet by sixty-one, which is calculated and divided for seats in the following manner, viz: the two aisles four feet wide each; the middle block of pews are eleven feet ten inches long, and three feet wide each; and the two lines drawn through the middle are four inches apart; in which space a curtain is to drop at right angles, and divide the house into four parts if necessary. The pews of the side blocks are fourteen and a half feet long, and three feet wide. The five pews in each corner of the house, are twelve feet six inches long. The open spaces between the corner and side pews are for fireplaces; those in the west are nine feet wide, and the east ones are eight feet and eight inches wide, and the chimneys carried up in the wall where they are marked with a pencil.
...
Make your house fourteen feet high between the floors. There will not be a gallery but a chamber; each story to be fourteen feet high, arched overhead with an elliptic arch. Let the foundation of the house be of stone; let it be raised sufficiently high to allow of banking up so high as to admit of a descent every way from the house, so far as to divide the distance between this house, and the one next to it. On the top of the foundation, above the embankment, let there be two rows of hewn stone, and then commence the brick-work on the hewn stone. The entire height of the house is to be twenty-eight feet, each story being fourteen feet; make the wall a sufficient thickness for a house of this size. The end view represents five windows of the same size as those at the side, the middle window excepted, which is to be the same, with the addition of side lights. This middle window is designed to light the rooms both above and below, as the upper floor is to be laid off in the same way as the lower one, and arched overhead; with the same arrangement of curtains, or veils, as before mentioned. The doors are to be five feet wide, and nine feet high, and to be in the east end of the house. The west end is to have no doors, but in other respects is to be like the east, except the windows are to be opposite the alleys which run east and west. The roof of the house is to have one-fourth pitch, the door to have Gothic top, the same as the windows. The shingles of the roof to be painted before they are put on. There is to be a fanlight, as you see. The windows and doors are all to have venetian blinds. A belfry is to be in the east end, and a bell of very large size.