Temple Lot Totally Explained

Everything about The Temple Lot totally explained

The Temple Lot is a planned temple location in the Latter Day Saint movement in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. The two-acre (0.8 ha) site was dedicated in 1831 by movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr. to be a New Jerusalem or 'City of Zion' after he received a revelation stating it would be the first gathering spot of the Saints during the Last Days. It is currently a field covered with grass with a non-temple church building on it, which serves as the headquarters of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot).

Overview

Smith and his followers were evicted from Missouri in 1839 before a temple could be built on the Temple Lot. Ownership of the property has been subject of court challenges among some sects of the Latter Day Saint movement that have resulted from the succession crisis following the death of Smith.
The Temple Lot is owned by the small Church of Christ (Temple Lot), which in 1867 acquired the land. The temple has never been built, though there was a failed attempt in 1929 by the Temple Lot church. The Temple Lot church has its headquarters on the site but hasn't built a formal temple. Its building has been burned by arsonists several times. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) has stated that it won't cooperate with other Latter Day Saint organizations in building a temple, nor will it sell the Temple Lot.
The RLDS Church, now known as the Community of Christ, owns the bulk of the original 63 acre (26 ha) tract around the Temple Lot which had been purchased in the 1830s by Latter Day Saint bishop Edward Partridge to be the central common and sacred areas according the Plat of Zion. The Community of Christ has its world headquarters in the adjoining area which is referred as the greater Temple Lot. In 1958, the RLDS Church opened the Auditorium to the south of Temple Lot. In 1994, it opened the Independence Temple to its east. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) operates an interpretive visitor center one block east of the Temple Lot.

History of the property

Selection of the site

In March 1831, Joseph Smith received a revelation which stated that a New Jerusalem was to be established in the United States. In June 1831, Smith received a revelation that the New Jerusalem was to be established somewhere on the western border of Missouri, "on the borders by the Lamanites (Native Americans)." Independence is six miles east of Kaw Point on the current 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:

"[T]he land of Missouri ... is the land which I've 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 isn't far from the court house: wherefore it's wisdom that the land should be purchased by the saints; and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line [theMissouri-Kansas border] running directly between Jew [NativeAmericans] 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 was soon to draw the ire of non-Latter Day Saint settlers in what is modern-day downtown Kansas City.
On August 3, 1831, Smith, Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Frederick G. Williams, William 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 63 acres, including the Temple Lot. During the purchase, Smith was to reveal: "The temple shall be reared in this generation, for verely this generation shan't pass away until an house shalt be built unto the Lord and a cloud shall rest upon it.

Temple plans

In June 1833, Smith set out the Plat of Zion, which layed 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're marked with a pencil.

...

Make your house fourteen feet high between the floors. There won't 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're 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.

Eviction from Jackson County

In July 1833, the process that would end with Latter Day Saints Saints being evicted from Independence and the surrounding Jackson County, Missouri area started when W. W. Phelps published in the Evening and Morning Star a Missouri law which set out the requirements for free blacks to come to Missouri (they had to have a certificate of citizenship from another state before entering Missouri).
The publication of something showing blacks that there was an alternative to being slave was considered the last straw for other Jackson County non-Latter Day Saint residents — particularly the slave holders. They burned the newspaper plant and tarred and feathered Bishop Edward Partridge and church elder Charles Allen.
In March 1839, Smith — whose surrender at Far West, Missouri ended the war — told his followers to "sell all the land in Jackson county, and all other lands in the state whatsoever." it lost on appeal in federal circuit court.

Attempts to build a temple

On February 4, 1927, Otto Fetting, an apostle of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), claimed that John the Baptist had visited him at his home as an angel and urged that the temple be constructed. Fetting's claim was officially endorsed by the leading quorum of the church and by most of the laity, who then agreed to begin construction of the temple in April 1929.
Ground was broken on April 6, 1929, with instructions that the temple was to be completed within seven years. These two stones are currently in the small museum in the Temple Lot church, and their original position is marked by two other engraved stones, embedded visibly in the lot. The outer corners of the temple are presently marked by similar stones, for a total of six.
The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) never completed construction of its planned temple.

Church burnings

On January 1, 1990, a member of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) who had recently joined the LDS Church, set fire to the unoccupied church building on the Temple Lot, claiming that his actions were part of a political protest and a prophecy that war was coming to America. The New Year's Day 1990 incident was the second time the Temple Lot church headquarters building had been damaged by fire by a lone protester. In July, 1898, a man protested church policy by attempting to remove a fence placed around the Temple Lot. Early on September 5, 1898, he set fire to the tiny headquarters building, and then walked to the police station and turned himself in.

Museum

A small museum operated by the Temple Lot church, accompanied by a narrator who will tell the story of the small church, is open during weekdays on the Temple Lot; admission is free.

Further Information

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