Tabernacle, one year later

PROVO TABERNACLE FIRE

OUT OF THE

Jim Dalrymple | Daily Herald

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he burning of the Provo Tabernacle in December 2010 was mourned as the end of an era for the city. One year later, that mourning has transformed as the fire and its fallout are increasingly — and somewhat surprisingly — understood as a pivotal moment in the city’s emerging renaissance.

When he saw the fireravaged building, Mayor John Curtis said he felt an overwhelming sense of loss. Wednesday, he recalled attending concerts and other events in the tabernacle and said it was an irreplaceable unifying

ASHES

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LDS Church

Flames at the Provo Tabernacle on Dec. 17, 2010 [left] gave way to plans in 2011 for an LDS temple.

ONLINE Photo by Laura Rowley

COMMEMORATIVE SECTION

For full coverage of the Provo Tabernacle fire go online to heraldextra.com/tabernacle

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Out of the Ashes: Remembering the Provo Tabernacle Fire

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Photo by Laura Rowley

History »

An icon of Utah Valley Genelle Pugmire

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DAILY HERALD

or more than a century, the corner of 100 South and University Avenue in Provo had been a gathering place for religious meetings, political gatherings, patriotic celebrations, graduations, concerts, weddings and funerals. That all changed on the morning of Dec. 17, 2010.

It’s impossible to tabulate the numbers of people who have gone through the Provo Tabernacle’s doors. However, it is testimony by virtue of the thousands of tweets, texts, emails, phone calls and public broadcasts, this building has touched people and leaves in its ashes numerous memories and stories.

“I’ve lived in that tabernacle,” said lifelong resident Carma de Jong Anderson, 80. “I remember as a 4-year-old girl sitting on the benches watching my parents perform.”

She was one of the many who made her way to the tabernacle on that freezing morning.

“The tabernacle is the only building where general conference of the church was held outside of Salt Lake City, during polygamy raid days during the 1880s — the plaster wasn’t even done.

Outside of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, that was our last real landmark from pioneer days,” noted historian Brent Ashworth said.

“It’s not only on the National Historical Registry but is also on the church’s landmarks list. That means it is very significantly historical and as one of 20 tabernacles the church works very hard at preserving it,” said Jenny Lund, manager of church historic sites for the LDS Church History department.

CIRCA 1920s

provotabernacle.org

The Provo Tabernacle seen during a parade.

15 years in the making Construction of the tabernacle began in December 1882 , and the building was dedicated in April 1898. Cost was $100,000. The architect was William Harrison Folsom, who had designed the Manti Temple and the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

The tabernacle was dedicated by George Q. Cannon, who filled in when LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff fell ill.

Over its 112 years, the Provo Tabernacle has hosted world-class entertainers, symphonies, ensembles, soloists and other artists. It is thanks to people like de Jong Anderson’s father, Gerrit de Jong Jr., and Herald R. Clark that the Provo Tabernacle was graced by such talent. Clark was the dean of BYU’s College of Commerce and scheduled lyceums in the Provo Tabernacle for both students and residents.

According to historian D. Robert Carter in his book “Tales from Utah Valley,” “Late in 1938, Clark achieved Provo’s cultural coup of the century.

He arranged for a concert from worldfamous pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.” Prior to his concert in

Sergei Rachmaninoff

President William Howard Taft

Provo he had performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Other notables on the list include opera singer Helen Traubel; Jascha Heifetz, violinist; Paul Robeson, singer; pianist Bela Bartok; French organist Marcel DuPre; and Tasha Tudor, children’s book writer.

Local stars including Robert Peterson, George Dyer, Michael Ballam, Kurt Bestor and Michael McClain have all performed there, according to Kathryn Allen, executive director of the Downtown Business Alliance of Provo.

Religious and political leaders graced the tabernacle pulpit as well. Nearly every LDS president since Lorenzo Snow has spoken there as well as leaders from other faiths, including Robert Schuller from the famous Crystal Cathedral in California. Two April General Conferences of the LDS Church were held there in 1886 and 1887.

In 1909, U.S. President William Howard Taft spoke at the tabernacle as a

guest of Sen. Reed Smoot.

Throughout its life the tabernacle faced a number of close calls. According to Lund, it was partially condemned in 1913 because the roof’s truss system didn’t support the center tower. It was renovated in 1917 and the tower was removed.

It was condemned again in 1949 because of the roof system. “Fred Markham, a local LDS stake president, was an architect and he figured out a way to support the roof,” Lund said. At the time there was a serious move to tear down the tabernacle.

In the 1980s it was remodeled again and brought back to its historic character and was rededicated by now LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson.

“It’s clearly a building connected to everyone in the community, by the text messages I’ve been receiving. Even emotion from kids that have texted me,” said Lewis Billings, former mayor of Provo. “There was a historic feel when you were in there. It’s the real deal, a history tapestry.”

Multipurpose The LDS Church still held meetings in the tabernacle until the fire.

Carl Bacon, a longtime resident of Provo, has attended many meetings at the tabernacle over the years as a member and leader in the LDS Church and made arrangements for meetings there.

“It was a beautiful structure, similar in some ways to the tabernacle in Salt

s Lake with balcony, columns, beautiful organ structure and a mural in back r of the tabernacle,” Bacon said. “It b was just a place that people loved to C come because it had so many wonderful memories of people who built this l beautiful structure.” s The last hours of the tabernacle were perhaps some of its most glori- q ous moments as it was decorated for m the Christmas concert “Gloria,” to be h performed by Lex de Azevedo’s Mil- p lennium Choral Society. Three levels of A lighted Christmas trees filled the build- t ing, and garlands were strung along t the bottom of the pipes at the base of the organ. Lights rigged in the ceiling c projected red and green splash along C the walls. f Barbara Lewis has many memories t of the building, and echoed the senti- n ment of many residents. o “My family and I have many memo- v ries associated with the Provo Taberna-i cle. I can remember the building even a when I was a young girl many years t ago,” Lewis said. “When my husband, a Ben Lewis, served as a stake president, “ our stake conferences were held in t this beautiful building. I recall one time when President Joseph Fielding Smith, d who was an apostle at the time, visited p this historic building with his wife, and I can still hear her wonderful singing t voice. It is still a very fond memory. t When I woke up this morning, I was d devastated by the news of the fire. It 1 is my hope and prayer that this Provo P landmark can be restored to its origi- n nal beauty.” o

Remembering the fateful morning Daily Herald

Editor’s note: Herald reporter Jim Dalrymple was one of the first onlookers at the tabernacle fire. This is his story of that unforgettable morning.

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he cold stung and the air smelled of soot as soon as I stepped out of my apartment.

I had been a full-time reporter for less than a week when a phone call from Provo city spokeswoman Helen Anderson woke my wife, Laura, and me up at 3:45 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2010. Groggy, we threw on any clothes we could find and started walking the two blocks to the Provo Tabernacle. We could see the glowing plume of smoke as soon as we left.

When we arrived, no caution tape surrounded the tabernacle. The site was open and wild, with firefighters dashing around the building. Flashing red and white emergency lights bounced off every surface. It was blinding and hyper-real.

As Laura and I circled the building, I discovered a crowd of a dozen or more bystanders — more than I would have expected at 4 a.m. I saw flames raging in the mostly still-intact south windows. I hoped that crews would get the fire out before it marred too much of the tabernacle’s charming interior.

For at least the next hour, the fire looked big, but not devastating.

Because I lived so close, I arrived before the TV crews and Laura was the first photographer at the scene. At some point she disappeared and took some of the only published photos of the fire before it destroyed the roof. At least at first, the intact exterior and dozens of busy firefighters gave the impression that the crisis would be over soon.

After a few minutes of taking the scene in, I began running around, questioning every firefighter in sight. Eventually I met fire marshal Lynn Schofield, who said the strategy was to go on the defensive. That meant staying outside of the building, he explained.

No, he didn’t know what started the fire.

He didn’t know how much damage it had caused. He had no idea if it was arson.

I later learned that Schofield was gathering vital information during those first hours, but from my perspective the entire scene looked like surreal chaos. Huge fire hoses snaked seemingly at random across 100 South. A college-aged guy — who I later interviewed — rode his bike up and down University Avenue, staring. Water hitting the street froze almost immediately, and the nearby trees dripped with ice-mist like images out of a Salvador Dali painting.

With Schofield busy, I questioned bystanders. The biker had been riding home from work when he noticed the fire. A woman driving by had stopped to see what was going on.

The minutes passed. The fire wasn’t getting smaller. A firefighter later told me the roof shielded the blaze from their hoses, and except for a hole at the west end of the building, the roof was almost entirely intact when I arrived. Huge arcs of water streamed toward the building, but much of it ran onto

the ground. I was surprised to see flames leaping into more and more windows only a few yards from where I was standing.

Sometime before dawn, the roof collapsed.

I nearly missed the moment as I ran around trying to interview the growing crowd. The falling roof pulled down gables and brick work.

With the roof gone the fight intensified.

Well-aimed hoses shot water directly on the flames, and by dawn the blaze had turned from dark smoke and red flames to a vertical pillar of white smoke. Looking down from the roof of the Nu Skin building I could barely see any flames or glowing cinders. Instead, heaps of blackened debris faded in and out of view as the breeze parted the smoke.

I stayed up there long enough to see the horizon turn blue, but not long enough for the valley street lights to flicker out.

Dawn brought bigger crowds and more news crews. Every station in Utah had a TV truck parked nearby. By the time the sun was above the mountains, the post office parking lot had become a media command center, and the Red Cross offered firefighters and journalists coffee and hot chocolate.

While most onlookers missed the biggest flames, they did witness some of the saddest moments: nearly invisible flames slowly charring their way across an ornate, street-level door; glass from lower windows shattering and falling into the burned-out interior; fire licking the roofs of the four corner turrets.

The bigger the crowds got, the wilder the rumors became: thieves had set the fire after stealing concert equipment; a downtown company hoping to buy cheap land was responsible; it was anti-Mormons angry about the LDS Church’s political involvement.

The real cause — a comparatively pedestrian mistake by a lighting crew — wouldn’t be identified for months, but the fire got people talking. And people came out in droves, despite the extreme cold. Many stood on street corners quietly crying and telling their families about the concerts they attended, the graduations they participated in. After I had more interviews than I could ever use, one elderly woman approached me and said she remembered listening to organ music pour out the front doors.

Other bystanders seemed exhilarated. A group brought out a remote control helicopter and started flying it over the fire to look inside. As fires sometimes do, it became a community gathering.

By mid-afternoon I was numb. My eyes stung from fatigue and smoke, and I frequently returned to the Utah Valley Visitors Center across the street to warm up. I also kept hailing Schofield and Deputy Fire Chief Gary Jolley, who patiently kept telling me they still hadn’t figured out what happened.

The fire smoldered for another day, and from my apartment I could see smoke drifting above the trees well after that. The icedover trees cracked and broke.

I finally left in the late afternoon, heading to the Daily Herald offices to somehow make sense of what I had seen and heard in the last 14 hours. As I left, the crowds continued to grow, mourning.

At least at first, the intact exterior and dozens of busy firefighters gave the impression that the crisis would be over soon.

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vo’s central neighborhoods will be accelerated. While the loss was significant, Curtis said, the spot in the community. gains are beginning to eclipse “I don’t think most of us the tragedy. realized how important that But fire and the tabernacle building was until it burned,” still stand out as a defining moCurtis said. ment for Curtis. He recalled But he also said it wasn’t long after the fire that attitudes how as it burned, contentious political and personal difstarted to shift. ferences ceased to matter.

“I think there was very quickly a sense from the com- Instead, they were drawn to munity that this would be OK,” each other and to their collective heritage. he explained. “It was actually “I believe that moments that pretty early on in the process. come along in an individual’s And much of it was the attilife and a community’s life tude that we will make somewhen you get little windows thing good of this.” into their character,” Curtis That “something” offisaid. “To me this was a mocially arrived when the LDS ment where the world got a Church announced that the glimpse into Provo’s character, former tabernacle would be and I’m proud of what they turned into a temple. The ansaw.” nouncement capped a series Provo fire marshal Lynn of economic development victories for the city — includ- Schofield also described the fire as a unifying moment in ing commercial flights at the Provo history. Schofield was airport and construction on one of the first authorities to the convention center — and according to Curtis brought a respond to the fire, and he de“tsunami” of interest to down- scribed it as a defining moment in his life. town.

“It’s kind of like an old “It’ll set a benchmark in our downtown area for caring for friend,” Schofield said. “It challenged me more than any properties,” he added. other event in my emergency According to Curtis, auservices career.” thorities anticipate the new Like Curtis, Schofield detemple becoming a downtown scribed the tabernacle as a destination that could draw 1,000 people a day to the area. vital part of the community.

The fire was a loss, he said, Property values around the new temple will go up, and the because the building somehow brought people together and ongoing effort to rebuild Pro-

emphasized what they have in common.

“It was a place where everybody melded,” he said. “It didn’t matter where you were from, or what religion you called home. It didn’t matter if you were grown up or adolescent. It was a great melting pot.”

Schofield said during the investigation into the fire he also learned about the community that sacrificed to build the tabernacle. At one point, he recalled, crews salvaged a piece of molding. When they looked at the back of the molding they found the name of the person who crafted it inscribed on the back. The name had been written in 1883 or 1884. At another point, he saw pieces of iron that were used to hold the roof together. When Schofield looked more closely, he could see the marks of the blacksmith’s hammer in the metal.

Like Curtis, Schofield was optimistic that the new temple would be a boon for Provo.

He called it a centerpiece for downtown redevelopment and said he believes something else eventually will fill the void left by the tabernacle. He believes history will remember the fire as a beginning, rather than an end.

“My guess is that 10 years from now we’ll say ‘that was a tragedy, but look what’s happened now,’ ” Schofield said.

LDS Church

A rendering of the LDS temple that will be built where the tabernacle stands.

New life, new purpose The church also immediately released an artist’s rendering of the udible gasps followed LDS Presi- temple online, showing the tabernacle with a tall central steeple topped dent Thomas S. Monson’s announcement that the fire-gutted with a gold statue of the Angel Moroni, as is traditional on temples.

Provo Tabernacle would become The converted tabernacle will Provo’s second temple. become the 16th temple in Utah.

“After careful consideration, we No timeline for reconstruction was have decided to rebuild it with full announced. The tabernacle was preservation to become the second originally constructed from 1883 to temple of the church in the city of 1898 and is located on University Provo,” he said at the church-wide Avenue between Center Street and general conference in October. He 100 South. said that the tabernacle had been “Since the 2010 fire, church lead“much beloved by generations of ers have worked with architects, enLatter-day Saints.” gineers and historical experts to deThe announcement was followed termine the future of the building,” by an immediate deluge of activity said church officials in a statement. on Twitter, and within moments of “The project will include a complete the announcement the new temple restoration of the original exterior. had even been given a name online To facilitate these plans the church — the “Provo Tabernacle Temple.”

Many people tweeting the news ex- has recently acquired additional pressed joy and even astonishment. property near the tabernacle.” daily Herald

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Out of the Ashes: Remembering the Provo Tabernacle Fire

Jim Dalrymple

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