This year, Pioneer Day marks the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The building is a central base for employees running Church operations, including communications, welfare and humanitarian work, family history and genealogy, missionary efforts, and production of Church-related materials and content.
Let’s look back at the evolution of the building and its rich history as a “symbol of Church headquarters” and a “house of giving.”
1. The Church Office Building is the second-tallest building in Salt Lake City, standing at 420 feet.
2. President Spencer W. Kimball dedicated the building on Pioneer Day (July 24) in 1975. The ceremonies included music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and marked the 128th anniversary of the pioneers’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.
3. The first four floors of the building were originally intended to house up to 430 outgoing missionaries. Ultimately, the missionaries stayed in a former elementary school building across the street until 1978, when the Missionary Training Center opened in Provo. Missionaries ate meals in the Church Office Building cafeteria in the early 1970s.
4. The Church originally planned the building to have 38 floors to reference Joseph Smith’s 38 years of life. The final plan ultimately settled on 28 floors due to mechanical restraints during construction, as well as changes of location in some expected operations (like housing missionaries).
5. The building’s construction took 10 years. It required the relocation of several buildings and the widening of North Temple and State streets.
6. In 1972, three years before it was dedicated, the completed building temporarily hosted all General Authorities while the Church Administration Building underwent a significant remodel.
7. There is a 66-foot-long mural on the east wall of the ground floor lobby by Seventh Day Adventist artist Harry Anderson. Latter-day Saint artist Grant Romney Clawson enlarged the original painting for the Church Office Building. Presidents of the Church have held news conferences in front of the mural since the building’s construction.
8. The building has many features that symbolize the Church’s global mission. For example, the south wall of the Church Office Building features granite relief maps of the Eastern and Western hemispheres of the world. In addition, the newly renovated Church Office Building Plaza features 91 flag poles and rotates all of the flags of officially recognized United Nations countries.
9. During the 2022 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the Church displayed a large banner of Utah figure skater Mackenzie Baltz on the west side of the building.
10. In 1999, during the Salt Lake City F2 tornado strike, only a few rotating windows on the building blew out. By comparison, the Delta Center sports and entertainment venue sustained a damaged roof, and other buildings were severely damaged.
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