LDS Visitors Center, Independence, Missouri

LDS Visitors Center
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Visitors Center in central Independence, Missouri, located south across the street from the Independence Temple, and shown east across the street from the Community of Christ Auditorium, which is just visible to the right.
Interactive map of LDS Visitors Center
General information
InauguratedMay 31, 1971 (1971-05-31)
OwnerThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

39°05′23″N 94°25′36″W / 39.089802°N 94.426747°W / 39.089802; -94.426747

The Independence Visitors' Center (dedicated on May 31, 1971)[1] is a visitors' center owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Independence, Missouri. The center is situated on the Greater Temple Lot dedicated and purchased by Joseph Smith and his associates in 1831, only a few yards from the Church of Christ (Temple Lot)'s headquarters and the Community of Christ temple.

History

The property upon which the visitors' center stands was first purchased on December 19, 1831, by Edward Partridge, acting on behalf of Smith. It was repurchased by the LDS Church, which had become the largest of several different Latter Day Saint denominations, on April 14, 1904.[2] The purchase was completed by James G. Duffin, who was president of the church's Central States Mission, acting on behalf of the First Presidency.

A few months later, the Kansas City Times published a rumor (but corrected itself the next day)[3] that the so-called "Utah Mormons" had secretly purchased the entire Greater Temple Lot, including that portion owned by the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), which had been the subject of a lawsuit in the 1890s between the Temple Lot church and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). The portion owned by the Temple Lot church was the highest-altitude 2.5 acres (10,000 m2) portion of the 63.5 acres (257,000 m2) originally purchased by Partridge in December 1831, and had been repurchased by Granville Hedrick, founder of the Temple Lot church, between 1867 and 1877. Both pieces of real estate are often confused, because since 1867 both the 2.5-acre (10,000 m2) area and the larger 63.5-acre (257,000 m2) area have been described in newspaper and other media reports as the "Mormon Temple Lot."[4][5] A January 2009 online article by Community of Christ researcher John C. Hamer entitled "The Temple Lot: Visions and Realities" helps clear up the confusion.[6]

The visitors' center opened in 1971, the same year as another particularly notable LDS visitors' center in Nauvoo, Illinois. Its style of presenting LDS Church beliefs and doctrines in a modern audio-visual and interactive format was the brainchild of Bernard P. Brockbank, a church general authority, who had overseen implementation of the same style at the 1964 New York World's Fair.[7]

Pageants

During the last few decades of the 20th century, the church produced an outdoor summertime pageant adjacent to the visitors center. The pageant first premiered in June 1975 and was titled Missouri, Mormons and Miracles. The performance featured 300 persons and was produced by the church's Independence and Kansas City stakes.[8] The story sought to provide answers as to where we came from, why we are here, and where we go after death, using Mormon theology.[9][10] Each year the script evolved and the performance was renamed Families Are Forever in 1979,[11] then Families Can Be Forever in 1982.[12]

In June 1985, a new pageant premiered called Independence, 1833,[13][14] which was renamed A Frontier Story, 1833 two years later.[15] This pageant's main storyline included two 19th century women—one a Latter-day Saint settler recently arrived in Missouri and the other a non-Mormon Missourian—who became friends in spite of their differences and during a turbulent period in the city's history.[16] In 1997, the church announced the pageant would be cancelled that year and new presentation would follow in the future.[17] However, no new pageant was ever performed.

Theories on future use

The visitors' center is alleged to have been designed after the Parthenon, one of the world's most renowned temples. This has fueled speculation as to whether the visitors' center is a temple constructed on the Greater Temple Lot dedicated and purchased by Smith and his associates for that purpose in 1831. An October 1952 Kansas City Times essay written by a friend and admirer of RLDS Church Historian Heman C. Smith (1850–1919)[18][19] published the rumor that the LDS Church intended to build a temple on the site today occupied by the center.[20] In his 2004 book Images of New Jerusalem author Craig S. Campbell examines the rumor, but is skeptical that the building may be "converted someday" into a temple.[21]

References

  1. ^ Joseph Fielding Smith, "...address by President Joseph Fielding Smith ... at the dedication of a new Visitors Center at Independence, Missouri, on May 31, 1971" Ensign, August 1971, p. 5.
  2. ^ p. 19, Church chronology: a record of important events pertaining to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Deseret [News] Publishing, 1914
  3. ^ "Denied by Mr. Duffin: No Truth in Report of a Large Purchase of Land by Mormons" Kansas City Times quoted in the Salt Lake City Herald newspaper, page 17 (C-3), January 15, 1905. "...The report published in the Times yesterday morning that several thousand acres of land had been purchased in Independence, Mo., for the use of the Mormon colonists was denied yesterday afternoon by James G. Duffin..."
  4. ^ A 1975 edition of the Los Angeles Times mentions the Visitors' Center in a report headlined Independence to be ‘City of God’: Three Churches Await Christ in Missouri Independence to be ‘City of God’: Three Churches Await Christ in Missouri By Charles Hillinger, Los Angeles Times, p. 18, Saturday, March 29, 1975, at Google Docs
  5. ^ An article published in the LDS periodical the Ensign in 1979 and reproduced online today includes a photograph of the LDS visitors center in Independence, Center, and the cutline reads: "Independence Visitors’ Center, dedicated in 1971 on part of the temple lot": "The Way It Looks Today: A Camera Tour of Church History Sites in Missouri", Ensign, April 1979.
  6. ^ Hamer, John (January 19, 2009). "The Temple Lot: Visions and Realities". By Common Consent.
  7. ^ "Church readies pavilion for N.Y. Fair Inaugural" Deseret News, February 29, 1964
  8. ^ "Outdoor Pageant Is Scheduled In Independence". Church News. Salt Lake City. June 7, 1975. p. 12. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  9. ^ "Mormons In Pageant". St. Joseph News-Press. St. Joseph, Missouri. June 11, 1975. p. 9A. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  10. ^ "Mormon Pageant Planned". The Kansas City Star. Kansas City, Missouri. June 10, 1975. p. 6. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  11. ^ "Mormons' Pageant Is Next Week". Kansas City Times. Kansas City, Missouri. June 9, 1979. p. 22C. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  12. ^ "Annual Mormon pageant to celebrate strength of families". The Kansas City Star. Kansas City, Missouri. June 16, 1982. Central and North Jackson Extra, p. 11. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  13. ^ Morgan, Ray (June 27, 1985). "About town: The frontier will live again". Kansas City Times. Kansas City, Missouri. p. B-7. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  14. ^ "Independence 1833". The Cameron Citizen Observer. Cameron, Missouri. June 27, 1985. p. B-8. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  15. ^ "Pageant attracts record numbers". Church News. Salt Lake City. July 4, 1987. p. 13. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  16. ^ Neilson King, Norma (July 2, 1994). "Loving one's neighbor is pageant's message". Church News. Salt Lake City. p. 11. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  17. ^ "Independence pageant, 'A Frontier Story,' has been canceled". Church News. Salt Lake City. April 19, 1997. p. 7. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
  18. ^ "Famous members of the Community of Christ formerly named the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS)"
  19. ^ RLDS "Church Letter on Succession Authority" ref. Heman C. Smith, 1919 at Shields-Research.com
  20. ^ Moore, Edward D. (October 30, 1952). "Church History Surrounds Independence Tract Said to Be Worth Million Dollars". Kansas City Times. Retrieved December 25, 2010. ...The 7,000-seat auditorium built by the R.L.D.S., which that church expects to finish at a cost of about 1 million dollars, faces the temple lot from the south...But just east of the Auditorium lot, across River boulevard, comes up the corner the Utah-owned temple tract on which the Utah Mormons say they will build a temple. In fact when the Independence school board offered to buy the tract for a new high school building and grounds, the Utah church president refused, but countered with an offer to give $60,000, to apply on the purchase of some other tract by the school board. Recently the Mormons sent the check. So a temple, understood by all Latter-Day Saints factions to be a strictly religious rites building, may spring up to complicate further an already complicated situation.
  21. ^ Campbell, Craig S. (2004). Images of the New Jerusalem: Latter Day Saint faction interpretations of Independence, Missouri. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 169–172. ISBN 1-57233-312-X. ...[T]he membership on occasion has been known to speculate whether the Visitors' Center could easily be converted into a temple, after all it is a multilevel structure with grounds decorated in templelike manner. One member expressed to me that the Visitor's Centers twelve columns were like those...twelve gates of the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:11-12)...In reality, the Visitor's Center has thirty-eight slender pillars covering all four sides of the building, so quite a bit of millennial imagination was employed in converting a museum into a temple...
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