Mesa Arizona Temple

Mesa Arizona Temple

Location

101 South LeSueur
Mesa, Arizona 85204-1031
United States

Contact

Telephone: (480) 833-1211
Facsimile: (480) 827-2828
Distribution Services: (480) 969-9792

Details

Announcement: 3 October 1919
Site Dedication: 28 November 1921 by Heber J. Grant
Groundbreaking: 25 April 1922 by Heber J. Grant
Public Open House: Tours offered during the last two years of construction
Dedication: 23–26 October 1927 by Heber J. Grant
Public Open House: 19 March–3 April 1975
Re-dedication: 15–16 April 1975 by Spencer W. Kimball

Site: 20 acres.
Exterior Finish: Concrete reinforced with 130 tons of steel. Exterior is faced with glazed egg-shell colored terra cotta tiles.
Ordinance Rooms: Four ordinance rooms (stationary) and six sealing.
Total Floor Area: 113,916 square feet.

Temple Locale:
Located just east of the original Mesa Townsite—settled by Mormon pioneers—the Mesa Arizona Temple anchors a historic district, which has predominantly retained its residential character. A public visitors' center shares the meticulously manicured grounds of the temple, which feature a cactus garden and large reflection pools. The Easter season brings thousands of guests to the temple grounds every year to watch Jesus the Christ, the largest annual outdoor easter pageant in the world. At Christmas time, the grounds are converted to an exquisite Nativity display accented by hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights.

Temple Facts:
The Mesa Arizona Temple was the first temple built in Arizona.
The Mesa Arizona Temple was the first temple to present the endowment in a language other than English. (The first non-English session was presented in Spanish in 1945.)
The Mesa Arizona Temple was the first temple to reopen to the public for an open house prior to a rededication.
The Mesa Arizona Temple was originally named the Arizona Temple.
Before the Mesa Arizona Temple was constructed, Arizona members performed temple ordinances in the St. George Utah Temple. Because of the numerous bridal parties that traveled the wagon road between St. George and Arizona, the well-trod path became known as the Honeymoon Trail.
The architects chosen for the Mesa Arizona Temple had recently designed the Utah Capitol Building.
The Mesa Arizona Temple was designed around a grand staircase that leads to the Celestial Room, occupying the highest level of the temple.
The Mesa Arizona Temple is one of four temples built with no towers or spires. (The others are the Laie Hawaii Temple, the Cardston Alberta Temple, and the Paris France Temple.)
Carved friezes decorate each corner of the top of the temple, depicting the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that the Lord would gather His people in the last days from the four corners of the earth.
The Mesa Arizona Temple features murals on the walls of its originally progressive-style ordinance rooms.
Instead of a formal open house, tours were offered during the last two years of construction of the Mesa Arizona Temple to any interested visitors.
The Mesa Arizona Temple was closed in February 1974, for extensive remodeling that equipped the ordinance rooms for motion-picture presentation of the endowment and that added a new entrance and an additional 17,000 square feet, providing much larger dressing rooms and increasing the number of sealing rooms.
For many years, the Mesa Arizona Temple was known as the "Lamanite Temple," as it was the destination of annual temple excursions for Hispanic and Native American members of the Church, especially the Mexican Saints.