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Show 4 4 , .WVv. TABERNACLE: Conflated Has A Birthday take ywuigsters whose voices, when not Confined from Fige controlled, could be beard all over the ington inventor to use this pattern of conTabernacle. struction to build the Tabernacle roof. The Tabernacles simple lines keep it a Today, those planks and pegs bound with major point of Interest for tourists as it is rawhide which made the Tabernacle roof distinctive front other houses of worship. possible, are still used. Unlike today, Church authorities in 1867 aretes spring from 13 The bridge-lik- e did not know what acoustical problems piers at each end of the Tabernacle, formthey would encounter as they assembled s in the Tabernacle. and Join with other arches ing v that rise from 30, piers on the north and President Young made preliminary ' south sides. Height from the floor to the tests speaking to different persons in varistructurous parts of the Tabernacle before serceiling is 70 feet. The bridge-lik- e al work between' ceiling and roof is 10 vices began for the first time to find out feet thick. how the speaker could be heard. With the arches in place, lath tacked Today, the remarkable acoustics of the Tabernacle astound the thousands of touron with imported nails, the big plaster ists who listen to a pin drop on the pulpit crews of men went to work. They used Little do they know of the scientific plaster embedded with horse and cattle hair, which was laid on the lath nailed to f work and hard labor that made it possible for them to hear the tick of the pin that is rafters and in turn to little wooden hangers suspended below the lower-mos- t dropped, even when they are in the rear of ,the Tabernacle, 200 feet from the pulstruts, braces and the ribs of the framing pit. system. The underside of the rafters was cut to Neither did pioneers dream (hat conform to the profile of the ceiling's their Tabernacle 'Wild be the center at vault curve. worship for people all over the world by means of radio and TV, now operating cn Oddly enough, there has been little a color-Tbasis. eracking of the hair reinforced plaster and since the double shell of the roof and ceilThis technical equipment is now stationed in a studio just below the south side ing provides ideal protection of the strucof the choir seats. TV stations in 49 states tural system, there has been little, if any, will cany the voices of General Authorideterioration of the framing units. No plate glass was available for Taberties and the Tabernacle Choir to millions of people. nacle windows, 'so the builders placed A dosed circuit radio will carry ths smaller window panes in frames between the piers which added up to a total of 2,500 Saturday night's priesthood meeting to task stakes and missions in the United States lights of glass r-- a window-cleanin- g that would make any housewife shudder. and Canada. The gallery was not built until 1870. It The Church-owneshortwave radio circles the entire Tabernacle except the station WNYW in New York also will choir seats. This had a pleasing effect in beam conference sessions to Europe, Africa and Latin America in English, Ger-mareducing the feeling of vast emptiness overhead in addition to adding hundreds Spanish and Portuguese. of seats which brought the total seating This is in contrast to the fact that it took nearly four years, to build the Tabercapacity to 8,000. The gallery measures 395 feet from one end to the other and is nacle before the railroad had reached 30 feet wide. It is supported by 72 colUtah and all imported material had to be umns. hauled in with ox teams from the Missouri River.' Years later a children's room was provided at the back frhere mothers could Thick wooden shingles which shed rain 4 i. semi-circle- , f Tabernacle roof beams are held together by wooden pegs. te V -- d n, !SSr t 'WVW . - f n T, V i and snow for 83 years gave way to a new metallic covering in the 1930s. Original cost of the building was approximately $300,000, not including the cm( of fiie organ. The Tabernacle organ, which has been enlarged several times since its original d of its initial installation, had 2,000 pipes installed for the first meeting. The organ casement was then only 15 feet high but reached upward of 40 feet when completed. While not completely tuned, they were able to use the organ to accompany the first Tabernacle Choir. Joseph Ridges, instructed by Brigham. Young to build an organ for the Tabernacle, was able to take only $900 from Church funds when he went to New York and Boston to purchase items for the organ that could not be manufactured in Utah. These Items included spring wire, thin sheet brass, soft fluff leather for the valves, ivory for the keys and other items. These were brought to Salt Lake by ox team from the nearest railroad. Mr. Ridges described the building of the organ at a testimonial in his honor. He said: We wanted immense quantities of glue, so we made banks of fires just outside the Tabernacle walls and put on big iron pots. We wanted cow hides to chop up and boil down into glue. We got them. The cows simply died. W also wanted calves' skins to hinge the ribs of the great bellows and, well, the calves died 8150." The organ builder said there was not a man in Utah who knew the first thing about an organ. He had to teach each of the 10 assistants who aided him in building the organ. Although preliminary work had begun In 1866, the base of the organ was not laid in the Tabernacle until the summer of one-thir- 1867. A (oAGts jmmim v in Picture of Tabernacle during laying of huge aluminum roof. RCH WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, IW j The organ had two manuals the great and swell, both heavily filled and the pipes on large scale. The pipes numbered upward of 2,000. Today the organ has 11,588 pipes one of the worlds largest organs. The organ's design, described in an 1868 edition of the Deseret News, stated . . . The front will be formed with panels, and pillars in the Corinthian style, tastefully carved and crowned with pyramidal tops . . . which will rise over 40 feet above the floor. . . . We cant preach the Gospel unless we have good music, said President Brigham Young. It was not until 1869 that the work on flut-ing- the Tabernacle and the organ neared an end. Dedication of the Tabernacle, howev- er, did not take place as a formal place worship until the October conference. H 1875. handsH At first the organ was pumped by prior to 1875 when a large water wheel was Installed in the basement of the Tabernacle to pump air into the organ. Water was taken from City Creek which at that time ran along North Temple Street Electricity eventually replaced the waterwheel production of air for the organ pipes. Few of todays members realize that there was another tabernacle on Temple Square, also with an organ, before the present Tabernacle was constructed. It is now known as The Old Tabernacle," finished in 1852. Its adobe walls stood on a rock foundation in the southwest comer of Temple Square. It measured 126 feet in length and 64 feet in width, had a sloping roof covered with wooden shingles and seating for 2,500. The original Tabernacle Choir was organized in this building and sang regularly at Sunday meetings. This old tabernacle was torn down in 1877 to make room for the present Assembly Hall on Temple Square. There have been times when the Tabernacle was endangered. On March 14, 1959, a flash fire threatened serious trouble when a light globe set a drop cloth on fire. The fire was discovered by Ray Loveless df KSL who with Roy M. Darley, organist, sounded the alarm and then put out the fire with a fire extinguisher before fire trucks arrived. Damage was caused in 1962 when two sprinkler pipes burst above the ceiling, causing seepage. The following year, the Tabernacle was insulated against fire. with new insulation in the eves and partitions to aid in temperature control and fire protection. More than 10,000 square feet of rock wool insulation was placed over the rafters, sprinkling pipes and partitions. In the same year, a coat of paint placed over the outside stone walls of the Tabernacle was removed, restoring the original look of the stone walls and buttresses. Today, as "The Saints Come Marching Home, they will enter their Tabernacle with a feeling of pride for its sturdy walls, newly renovated interior, painted walls and varnished benches but above aH its memories of a great GEORGE L. SCOTT pioneer heritage. . . |