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By Deborah Carl
Local Church Members Save Chapel
SPRINGVILLE, UTAH -- The Latter-day Saint chapel on Center Street and 300
East was slated for destruction, but the local members wouldn't let it
happen. They convinced the church to spend an extra $175,000 to restore the
65-year-old building and its unique features.
The church, completed in 1936, has stained-glass windows, a ceiling made of
Philippine mahogany and a pipe organ that the original contractor of the
building donated with money left over from the construction. The building
also has molded panels of the First Vision and other scenes of the
Restoration that were taken from the original molds of the bronze plaques
now featured on the Hill Cumorah monument in Palmyra, New York.
When the LDS Church's building's department first proposed replacing the
building with a newer, and cheaper, design, Waldo Jacobson, who was 10 at
the time the building was completed, was one of many local members who
protested. "They said it would fall in an earthquake," Jacobson said. "My
response was, 'If I've got to die in an earthquake, I'd rather die here than
anywhere else.'" Jacobsen also argued that the sacrifices that local members
made when the building was built made it worth saving.
Source:
Church rallies to save historic chapel
BYU NewsNet 12Oct01 D1
By Ryan Heaton: NewsNet Staff Writer
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