St George Temple Visitors Center Visit

While visiting Southern Utah this past week, we had the opportunity to visit the St. George Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  There was an interesting model in the visitor's center.  It showed the city of St George around the time of the construction of the temple.  The visitor's center has large windows that overlook the temple and temple grounds.

Here is a closer photo showing some of the detail of the model.

(The temple is the white building on the lower left side)

Here is one of the information plaques explaining that the temple was 

dedicated on April 6, 1877

I found the following photos online.  The temple grounds are beautifully manicured and very lush compared to the surrounding desert.  After looking at a couple of resources, I found that the temple architectural style is called Castellated Gothic Style.

The temple is significant because it was the first temple that was built after the Mormon pioneers were driven out of Missouri and made their home in the state of Utah and is the oldest operating temple in the church today.  It was completed before the Salt Lake City Temple which was dedicated in 1893.