St. George Temple: Interior

Note: This is one of a series of posts on the interiors and floor plans of historic temples:
1. St. George Temple (1877)
2. Logan Temple (1884)
3. Manti Temple (1888)
4. Salt Lake Temple (1893)
5. Laie Temple (1919)
6. Cardston Temple (1923)
7. Mesa Temple (1927)
8. Idaho Falls Temple (1945)

In keeping with my other posts on the pioneer temples, I wanted to have one comprehensive post where I go through the floor plans of the St. George Temple. While this post was first published in 2015, I've updated it with new images (especially after the 2023 rededication) as they've become available.

 The St. George Temple has five floors.

(Image Source: LDS Church Historian's Library)

 

The first floor is the basement (at the bottom of the photo above). The second floor and fourth floors are full floors; both were originally assembly halls (one over the other, similar to Kirtland and Nauvoo). Now, the second holds the endowment rooms, while the fourth has kept its original assembly hall. The third and fifth floors are referred to as mezzanine floors. They run along the temple's north and south walls (the boxes with diagonal lines in the photo above). They have sealing rooms and other smaller rooms. The second and fourth floor, therefore, have lower, flat ceilings on the sides, but the middle is open and the ceiling, arched. We'll see a bit of this in the photos.

The basement of the temple consists of dressing rooms, confirmation rooms, a lobby, and a chapel.
The oxen for the font here were done by Amos Howe, who had to search in both Utah and Idaho for the perfect specimen of ox to sculpt. His first attempt was apparently not good enough for Brigham Young, who responded by saying "That won't do, Amos." When he created the final structure, Young exclaimed, "Brother Howe, you have even registered the disposition of a live ox." Modeled in wood, the oxen were only cast with the front part of the bodies, and without hooves. (You can see that in the picture below.)

The font itself is oval, 13'x9' at the top. Altogether, the font weighs nearly 5000 pounds, and it took a complicated system of ropes and pulleys to get it into place. Over the years, the font was painted white.

(Image Source)

 

In the most recent renovation, all the paint was stripped away, showing the original bronze of the oxen and font, which are both still original.

 

The basement was heavily reconfigured in the 2023 renovation, but that is nothing new. Originally, the basement held the baptismal font and all of the rooms of the endowment. These rooms were much smaller than the ordinance rooms most temples have today. They also had murals painted by Dan Weggeland, C.C.A. Christensen, and Samuel Jepperson.

Within a few months, the terrestrial and celestial rooms were moved up to the main assembly hall so that the sessions could hold more patrons. Finally, in 1937, all of the endowment rooms were bumped up to the main floor, into the arrangement we are familiar with today. The basement murals were removed during this renovation.

Now, let's take a look at the main floor. The top of this floor plan is the east end of the temple (you'll notice the spiral staircases in the corner towers). This sketch does not include the addition to the back of the temple--a new hallway and lobby, built onto the west end, allows access to all three of the ordinance rooms.

This floor (and the fourth floor) has two sets of seven pillars along the entire building, which hold up the third floor. These are simple wooden beams that were covered with hollowed-out wood pillars that are beautifully painted and carved in the shape of a quatrefoil. 

1 - Staircase to return to annex (originally, the area where patrons entered the temple from the annex)

2 - I'm assuming an area for temple workers can fit here.

3 - Creation Room (now Ordinance Room 1)

4 - Garden Room (now Ordinance Room 2)

5 - World Room (now Ordinance Room 3)

6 - Terrestrial Room (now Veil Room)

7 - Celestial Room

8 - South Sealing Room (there may also be another room in this area)

9 - Tower Sealing Room

10 - Anteroom (referred to as "Rose Room")

I'll now go through these different rooms with any images I have.

The staircase to the annex was replaced, but it originally where patrons entered the temple from the annex, coming up a staircase and heading west (through what is now room 2) to enter the creation room. After the 1970s renovation, it was where patrons exited the temple to go back to the annex.

The ordinance rooms in the temple originally had murals covering most of their walls. In the 1973-74 remodeling, which converted the temple from a progressive, live endowment to a stationary, film endowment, these murals were removed and shipped to Salt Lake City. In 1992 the temple president asked that they be returned. Portions had to be cut away to make them fit, but at least one wall of each ordinance room received a piece of the original murals. In the 2023 renovation, these original pieces were removed, and the ordinance rooms were repainted with murals that are partly inspired from the originals (similar to what happened in the Mesa temple's renovation).

 

This is the creation room as it was before the remodel that removed the murals, looking back toward the door that patrons entered. (While this was the back of the room, since the renovation, it has now become the front of the room.) The creation room didn't get murals in the 1937-1938 renovation; they were added in 1946 by Peter M. Kamp. Apparently, the colors at the front of the room were so brilliant that a part of it was covered by a curtain.

Of course, the 1970s renovation didn't keep the murals, and it covered all of the clear windows with heavy curtains to block out any light. They looked very different after this.

Here is the creation room today, with its new mural. This is on the northwest corner of the temple.

 

 

The garden room is larger than the creation and world rooms. Since it's in the middle of the floor, it should have a high, arched ceiling. That ceiling was covered in the 1970s, and restored in 2023. The door on the right side of the photo below entered the world room; that door no longer exists.

The mural here was done by Joseph Alma Freestone Everett; he also did the world room mural, both in the 1938 renovation. The mural in the garden room faded really quickly, so in 1956 Paul Forster repainted much of it. This photo shows more of the front.

You can see similarities in the mural that exists today:

The main two trees of the garden are much less noticeable (probably because they aren't used in the ceremony), and the small doorway that was used in the live endowment is replaced with a spot for the film to show.

I don't have a photo of the world room before its remodel, but here's what it looked like after the 1970s remodel. Rather plain (although a portion of the mural was restored, but it's not in this photo). The world room only ever had two walls painted--its front and left wall.

(Image Source)

The world room's mural today covers all walls, and the landscape is much more reflective of Southern Utah:

Originally patrons progressed between all three ordinance rooms and then into the terrestrial room. When the temple became stationary in the 1970s, the doors between ordinance rooms were removed, and all of these rooms now feed into the temple's original terrestrial room. 

 

Here, the veil is in a large semi-circle at the front of the room. The arched ceiling is uncovered and easy to admire. Sometime in the mid-1900s, clouds were painted on the ceiling, giving the impression of a desert sky.

Overall this room has stayed the same throughout renovations. The veil has been bumped a bit, and the sky ceiling was removed in the 2023 renovation.

Proceeding through the veil, patrons enter the celestial room.

The Celestial Room originally followed the pattern of the other rooms--it took up the central part of the temple, and small rooms were on either side that served as sealing and extension rooms. However, the one on the north side was cut off in 1937 with the installation of an elevator. It became a small anteroom that's is called "the Rose Room." There was still a small sealing room on the south side all the way until the 2023 renovation, which absorbed these rooms into the large celestial room space.

Some decorative elements were added to the celestial room throughout the 20th century, but the 2023 renovation restored it to its simple white.

The celestial room provides access up a simple staircase to a sealing room in the east tower. Live sealings are still held here, and everyone must dress in white. Here it was in the late 1900s:

Very little change here:

If you go to the third or fifth floor for initiatory or sealings, you will see that it is simply one long hallway that runs the length of the temple on either side.

The east tower also has rooms on the third and fifth floor; the tower room on the third floor was referred to as the "prayer circle room." This now holds the sealing offices and waiting rooms. It is a great place to examine the plaster molds of the ceiling decorations.

The sealing rooms themselves on the third floor or quite small; each one can hold about 7-9 people. Each one also has a small altar (still beautifully decorated) and one round window.

The fourth floor is the temple's priesthood assembly hall.

 

It has remained largely the same over the years. The pulpits here are the aaronic priesthood pulpits, on the west end of the temple.

When the 1970s renovation occurred, a new addition was built onto the west of the temple. This is because the only other way to move between floors was the spiral staircases on the temple's east end. These were not up to code to evacuate large numbers of people, and besides, they couldn't figure out how to get people from one ordinance room to another. A west addition added new stairs and let people easily access the creation, garden, or world room. But it covered up this window.

In the 2023 renovation, they removed the old west addition and found the window still here. They built a new west addition (because you still need stairs and ordinance room access) but left the window, which now looks into the addition:

In the pictures above, you can see the same alternating star/quartrefoil patterns above the pillars that are in the celestial and terrestrial rooms. In the old picture, you can see that every third quartrefoil is black--that's because it's actually a vent so that hot air could rise out through them to the fifth floor above.

This room is a great place to view the windows. The interior arches of many of the windows were actually made of plaster of paris, not wood. These are extremely fragile and would have to be handled delicately. The same goes with baseboards that curve around the spiral staircases in the temple, and the star and quartrefoil patterns. These patterns were all made out of likely one mold made of wood.

Here is a view toward the east end of the room, with the Melchezidek Priesthood pulpits. The doors behind the pulpits on the east side go into the east tower room (called the General Authority Reception room), which has a large painting of Lewis Ramsey's Moroni Reveals the Plates to Joseph Smith.

The letters on the pulpits here changed from the Kirtland Temple. Here's a comparison:

Aaronic Priesthood Pulpits (top to bottom)

Kirtland                                                                           

BPA (Bishop Presiding over Aaronic Priesthood) 

PAP(Presiding Aaronic Priests)                                 

PTA (Presiding Teachers, Aaronic)                            

PDA (Presiding Deacons, Aaronic)                           

St. George

PAP (Presidents of the Aaronic Priesthood)

PPQ (Presidents of the Priests Quorum)

PTQ (Presidents of the Teachers Quorum)

PDQ (Presidents of the Deacons Quorums)

 

Melchizedek Priesthood Pulpits (top to bottom)

Kirtland                                                                                               

MPC (Melchizedek Presiding Council; 1st Presidency)

PMH (Presiding Melchizedek High Priesthood; Quorum of 12/Stake High Council)

MHP (Melchizedek High Priesthood; High Priests)

PEM (Presiding Elders Melchizedek; Elders Quorum)

St. George

PMPH (Presidents of the Melchizedek Priesthood)

PSZ (Presidents of the Stake of Zion)

PHPQ (Presidents of the High Priests Quorums)

PEQ (Presidents of the Elders Quorums)

This room is beautiful. Its plaster flower decorations that were meant to house light fixtures didn't have any added until the 2023 renovation! Its uncovered windows allow light to stream in on either side, and it has kept the original pulpits on the east and west ends of the temple, as well as some original benches.

This temple is one of the most significant historical sites of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That it continues to be used for what members consider to be sacred work is even more commendable. The Church is taking very good care of this building. If you ever have the opportunity to visit--don't pass it up!