The Temple in Salt Lake City, the corner-stone of which was laid on the twelfth of April, 1853, is, like the municipal buildings in Philadelphia, the City Hall in San Francisco and the Cathedral in Cologne, still unfinished, although $3,500,000 has been expended in its construction so far. The Temple’s dimensions are 200 × 100 feet.
It is built entirely of granite. The towers are beautiful. When completed they will be 200 feet high. A marble slab 12 × 3 feet is inserted in the centre tower. Upon that slab appears this inscription in gold letters:
“Holiness to the Lord, the house of the Lord. Built by the Church of Jesus Christ, of latter-day saints. Commenced April 6, 1853. Completed”—space is left under the word “completed” in which to insert the date, but that space may not be filled during the next quarter of a century.
The first blocks of granite for the building were hauled from the quarries, a distance of twenty miles, by oxen, but for many years past the granite has been brought to the city by a railroad planned originally by Mormons.
Salt Lake, on account of its unpaved streets, must be miserable as a place of residence. In wet weather the mud in the streets is from six inches to two feet deep, and in dry weather the dust is intolerable. It is probably not quite so bad in these respects as Key West, Florida, but it is always disagreeable enough. Yet the city is well laid out; all the streets are over one hundred feet wide; there is a good system of electric street-cars, and there are many fine granite and brick business blocks. Salt Lake has an evident air of prosperity. Its population has more than doubled in the past ten years. In 1880 it was 20,000; in 1890 45,000.
Brigham street, the Fifth avenue of Salt Lake, contains not a few private residences of which any city might be proud.
The leading hotel is “The Templeton,” owned by a company of which D. C. Young is president. The manager of the hotel is Alonzo Young. The president and the manager are both sons of Brigham Young, but are half brothers only. Brigham sleeps with a couple of his wives in a cemetery a few hundred feet from the hotel.
The Templeton is new and substantial, but it was not erected for a hotel, and it lacks some conveniences which you expect to find. It is better adapted for an office building, which was its original purpose.
The dining-room is on the top floor, as is the dining-room of the Auditorium in Chicago, and the Vendome in New York, and as is the kitchen of the Windsor Hotel in London.
From this room in the Templeton, if you secure a choice seat, you get most magnificent views. You are surrounded by snow-covered mountains, and to the west you see the principal buildings of the city—the Mormon Tabernacle, the Temple and the Assembly Hall, all enclosed and fenced within a ten-acre lot.