History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

582 POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.
tion could be had at very moderate charges. 23 Even in
its business portion, Main Street had at this date
many vacant lots, being then in the embryo condition
through which all cities must pass, the log building
standing side by side with the adobe hut and the stone
or brick store, with here and
relics of the days of 1848.
there a few shanties,
Among the principal attractions was the temple
block, surrounded in 1860 with a wall of red sandstone,
on which were placed layers of adobe, fashioned
in imitation of some richer substance, and raising it to
a height of ten feet. On each face of the wall were
thirty pilasters, also of adobe, protected by sandstone
copings, but without pedestals or entablatures. Up
to the year 1860 the cost of the wall and the foundations
of the edifice already amounted to $1,000,000, a
sum equal to the entire outlay on the temple at Nauvoo.
The block was consecrated on the 3d of February,
1853, and the corner-stones laid with imposing
ceremonies on the 6th of the following April. 24 In
August 1860, the foundations, which were sixteen
feet deep and of gray granite, had been completed, but
no further progress had been made. I shall reserve
until later a description of the building as it now
stands. Of the tabernacle which occupied the southwest
corner of the block, and the bowery immediately
north of the tabernacle, mention has already been
made. 25
In the north-west corner, and separated from
23 Burton relates that at the time of his visit, in Aug. 1860, the Salt Lake
House was kept by a Mr Townsend, a Mormon convert from Maine, who had
been expelled from Nauvoo, where he sold his house, land, and furniture, for
$50. City of the Saints, 248. His charge for 24 days' board and lodging was
$34.25. The bill, which is curiously worded, is given in full in Id., 537.
Among its items are '14 Bottle Beer 600' (cents), '2 Bottles Branday 450.'
2i The original plans will be found in the Millennial Star, xvi. 635, and
Linforth's Route from, Liverpool, 109-10. Those given by Truman O. Angell,
the architect, in the Deseret News, Aug. 17, 1854, differ somewhat from the
above, but both agree that the edifice was to cover a space of 21,850 sq. feet,
or about half an acre. For descriptions of the consecration and laying of
the corner-stones, see Woodruff's Journal, MS.; Tucker's Mormonism, 222;
Ferris' Utah and the Mormons, 167-9; S. L. City Contributor, iii. 79; Deseret
News, Feb. 19, Apr. 16, 1853. Seven thousand four hundred and seventyeight
tons of rock were used for the foundation. Richards' Incidents in Utah
Hist., MS., 81.
25 Burton describes the tabernacle, in 1S60, as an adobe building, capa-