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.
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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.
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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.
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).
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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:
St. George
