abstract
| - The Endowment House stood on the northwest corner of Temple Square. Initially, it was a two-story adobe building, 44 feet by 34 feet, with a single-story 20-foot extension on its north side. In 1856 another extension was added on its south side and a baptistry on its west side. Inside, it was the first building designed specifically for administering temple rituals. Earlier buildings used for such purposes, Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Temple and the Council House, only had temporary canvas partitions. It had the typical ordinance rooms found in some later Mormon temples: creation room, garden room, world room, celestial room, as well as a sealing room. In 1856 William Ward painted the walls of the creation room to represented the Garden of Eden, the first such temple mural. It was one of the first buildings in Utah to have indoor bathrooms.
|