Ohio's Mormons building a temple
Cincinnati OH Post 9Aug99 C3
By Stephen Huba: Post staff reporter

Members of the LDS Church in Ohio will have a temple there for the first time in 163 years, with the advent of a temple in Columbus. Members of the Church in Cincinnati are likely to travel to the new Columbus temple in place of the current six-hour drive to the Chicago temple.

"This is a very important happening in church history, to have another temple established in Ohio," said Cincinnati North Stake president George Rahlf. "The members of the church here are very happy." There are two stakes in Cincinnati with about 7,500 members. Rahlf sas that the new temple will mean that members will be able to go to the temple more frequently.

The open house for the Columbus temple is scheduled to begin on August 21st and continue August 24 to 28. The temple is one of the new smaller temples announced by President Hinckley in the April 1998 general conference. Rahlf says that he and 10 other stake presidents petitioned church leadership for a temple in Ohio to serve the 38,000 members there. "We put together a petition that said we feel we have enough membership to support a temple in Ohio," Rahlf said. "As a participating stake, we helped with the process."

In addition to the Columbus Temple, members in Cincinnati can look forward to the construction of a new temple still closer in Louisville, Kentucky, which should open sometime in 2000. And, who knows, there may eventually be a temple in Cincinnati, "We pray for it; we want one," said Diann Tammen, director of public affairs for the Cincinnati area. But with temples in Columbus and Louisville, it isn't likely anytime soon.

This article also contains basic background information on Temples, and a summary of the history of the LDS Church, taken from "Mormons in America" by Richard and Claudia Bushman (Oxford University Press) and Christianity Today magazine.