Nauvoo Temple — Original Blueprints Miraculously Discovered in a Non-Member's Home After 150 Years

When President Gordon B. Hinckley announced in April 1999 that the Nauvoo Temple would be rebuilt, architects faced an extraordinary challenge: the original 1840s temple had been burned by arsonists in 1848 and then completely leveled by a tornado in 1850. No stone remained upon another. And architect William Weeks's original drawings had never been located by the Church.

The rebuilding project began with what historical photos and descriptions existed. But the details of the original exterior — the precise dimensions, window placements, and ornamental carvings of the sunstones, moonstones, and star stones — were uncertain.

Then, in a development the Church called providential, William Weeks's original architectural drawings — meticulously detailed plans that had been preserved entirely unknown for over 150 years — were discovered in the home of a non-member family. The drawings had been passed down through Weeks's descendants, who had no connection to the Church, and who had no particular reason to preserve or offer the documents. They were intact.

The discovery of these drawings made it possible to reconstruct the Nauvoo Temple as an exact replica of its exterior, matching every detail of the original building that Joseph Smith had designed from vision. The circular windows that Joseph insisted upon over the architect's objection, the sunstone capitals, the moonstone bases, the starstone frieze — all were replicated precisely.

President Hinckley said at the 2000 cornerstone ceremony: 'This will be the house of the Lord. It will be dedicated as His holy house... It will have great historic significance. It will be a thing of beauty.' The rebuilt temple was dedicated on June 27, 2002 — the 158th anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in William Weeks):

Weeks’ drawings of the Nauvoo Temple remained with his descendants, passing from Weeks to his daughter Caroline F. Weeks Griffin, who passed them to her son, Leslie Griffin. In 1948 two Mormon missionaries, Frank Gifford and Vern Thacker, contacted Griffin while tracting door to door in Boron, California. Griffin and the two missionaries became friends, and, when Griffin learned that Thacker was returning to Salt Lake City, he gave him Weeks' drawings to donate to the LDS Church. Thacker did as Griffin requested, and Weeks’ original drawings proved invaluable in the later reconstruction of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple.