Fire gutted the tabernacle and the church built a temple inside its bones
A tabernacle raised to hold three thousand people burned to its outer walls in 2010, thirty seconds from where you are standing.
Last reviewed 18 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 1849–2016
The short answer
The William D. Alexander House stands in Provo near the Provo Tabernacle, a building raised in 1883 to 1886, dedicated in 1898, and gutted by fire in December 2010, after which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rebuilt a temple inside its surviving brick walls, completed in 2016.
Nu Skin Innovation Center, Provo, UT, USA — 2014 · David Daniels · CC BY-SA 4.0
December 2010
The tabernacle burned to its brick walls in 2010
Flames broke out inside the Provo Tabernacle on a December night in 2010. By morning almost everything inside was gone. The roof had fallen in. The pipe organ, the pews, the plaster ceiling, all of it burned. Only the brick outer walls kept standing, blackened but upright, 209 meters from where you are now.
The building that burned was already a replacement. A smaller meetinghouse had stood on this same block from 1861. By the 1880s the congregation had outgrown it. Construction on the bigger tabernacle started in 1883. Harvey H. Cluff oversaw the work. The architect, William H. Folsom, designed an auditorium and balconies that could seat 3,000 people. It was in use by 1886. Church president George Q. Cannon formally dedicated it on April 17, 1898, with Joseph F. Smith at his side. The building cost $100,000 to finish. A $10,000 pipe organ went in a decade later. For over a century it hosted conferences, concerts and funerals in downtown Provo.
Then came the fire. The walls that survived it became the starting point for something else entirely. On October 1, 2011, church president Thomas S. Monson announced that a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would rise inside the scorched shell. Before construction began, archaeologists from Brigham Young University dug beneath the site. They found the buried foundation of the very first 1861 meetinghouse. They also found coins and trinkets that had slipped through its floorboards decades earlier.
Only the brick outer walls survived the night.
1918 to 1919
Workers tore down the first meetinghouse for a bigger one
The engineers who raised the answer didn't leave the old meetinghouse standing. The first tabernacle on this block held 1,100 people since 1861. It was torn down between 1918 and 1919. They needed space for a bigger building. Its 80-foot bell tower and single bell came down with it. The site sat buried and forgotten for nearly a century.
In 2012, archaeologists from Brigham Young University dug into the ground where it had stood. They found the old foundation stones and a baptismal font still in place underground. Coins and small trinkets that had fallen through the original floorboards over sixty years turned up in the dirt beside them. The stones were pulled out and given to Provo City. The first tabernacle left nothing standing above ground, only what workers found when they finally looked below it.
Late 1849 to February 1850
A killing on the river led to a massacre
Before any tabernacle stood on this block, the ground a few miles north was already violent. Late in 1849, a settler killed a Ute leader known as Old Bishop. He accused Old Bishop of stealing a shirt. He hid the body in the Provo River. The killing went unpunished and unreported to the Timpanogos camped nearby.
In February 1850, Brigham Young ordered a militia to Fort Utah, near the river where Old Bishop had died. Armed with cannon, the militia killed an estimated 40 to 100 Timpanogos men over the course of nine days. One militiaman died in the fighting. The battle is remembered today as the Provo River Massacre. It happened before Provo had a single permanent building, let alone a tabernacle to burn.
1960 to 1989
A post office lot passed from two families to the city
The lot beside you has its own chain of owners, and none of them lasted long. In February 1960, a private buyer sold her share of it to Provo City. Days later, a private buyer sold theirs too. The city held the combined ground until 1961, when the county formally created the parcel now numbered 04:042:0005.
Provo City kept title until December 1988, when it deeded the lot to a trustee named Metro National Title Trustee. Within weeks, that trustee passed it on to the United States Postal Service, which still holds it. A city redevelopment ordinance covering South University Avenue was recorded on the same lot in January 1989. Two family names disappeared from the deed books, and a federal postal facility took their place.
A block that once burned a congregation's grandest room now holds a temple sealed in its own scars, a post office on land two families once owned, and a river three miles north that still carries the name of a massacre nobody built a monument to.
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Modern
Late 1849
In late 1849 a settler killed a Ute leader called Old Bishop over an accused theft and hid his body in the Provo River, an act that helped trigger the Battle at Fort Utah weeks later a few miles north.
George and Matilda Haws, Harriet Turner and William Dayton, among eight people who died in Fort Utah's first year, were first buried at Lake View before their remains moved to Provo City Cemetery.
Ordered by Brigham Young, a militia armed with cannon killed an estimated 40 to 100 Timpanogos men and several women along the Provo River over nine days in February 1850.
The Provo Downtown Historic District, listed on the National Register, covers 25 acres and 43 contributing buildings dating mostly from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In 1960 a private buyer and, days later, a private buyer each deeded pieces of this ground to Provo City, which sold the assembled lot to the U.S. Postal Service in 1988.
County surveyors created parcel 04:042:0005 in 1961, describing it by courses and distances from the southwest corner of Block 45 of the original Provo City survey.
Festival Latinoamericano began in 2002 as a three-day celebration of Utah's Hispanic culture through food, vendors and performances, held free to the public downtown.
Fire gutted the 1898 tabernacle in December 2010, leaving only its exterior walls standing before the LDS Church rebuilt inside them as the Provo City Center Temple.
Fire broke out inside the Provo Tabernacle one night in December 2010 and by morning had destroyed the roof, pews, plaster ceiling and pipe organ, leaving only the blackened brick outer walls standing.
What was here before the Provo City Center Temple?
The ground held the Provo Tabernacle, built between 1883 and 1886 and dedicated in 1898, and before that a smaller meetinghouse built in 1861 that was torn down in 1918 and 1919.
Who built the William D. Alexander House?
William Denton Alexander built the house in 1891, and it is asserted to be the only surviving example of Stick Style architecture in Utah.
What did archaeologists find under the tabernacle site?
In 2012 Brigham Young University archaeologists found the buried foundation stones and baptismal font of the 1861 meetinghouse, along with coins and trinkets that had fallen through its floorboards decades earlier.
What happened at Fort Utah in 1850?
A militia ordered by Brigham Young, armed with cannon, killed an estimated 40 to 100 Timpanogos men and several women over nine days in February 1850, following the killing of Ute leader Old Bishop in late 1849.
Who has owned the post office lot since 1960?
A private buyer sold their shares of the lot to Provo City in 1960; the city held it until 1988, when it passed through a trustee to the United States Postal Service.
