You are invited to a painting activity on Tuesday, October 27th, at 7:00 PM in the Relief Society Room, taught by Dallyn Giles!
During this painting experience, we will each take a charcoal painting and use paint to create our own unique representation of Jesus Christ. As we paint, we will have the opportunity to reflect on the Savior and His love for us while enjoying a peaceful and creative evening together.
Whether you love painting or have little to no artistic experience, everyone is welcome!
Priesthood Leadership Session 8-9am Sunday, Nov. 8th Those invited: -Stake presidency -High council -Stake and ward clerks (and assistant clerks as needed) -Stake and ward executive secretaries -Stake Young Men presidency (and secretary if called) -Bishoprics -Elders quorum presidencies and secretaries -Aaronic Priesthood quorum advisers
Thank you for blessing the ward by starting a group!
It will be public as soon as a member of the bishopric approves it.
Explore Our History
1 of 5
Ward History Quiz
How well do you know the 1st Ward?
Ten questions, all answered in the chapters above. Ten right makes you a Ward Historian.
Chapter I of V
One of Provo’s 4 Original Wards
Provo was one ward until August 1852, when it was divided into four and we became the southeast quarter. By direction of the First Presidency, none of the four has ever been renamed.
The old meetinghouse, in a painting by Samuel Jepperson and an early photograph.
Choosing the Site
On 6 August 1852 the Saints measured off ground for a meetinghouse on the public square. That evening President George A. Smith dedicated the spot, and ground was broken.
They finished digging and gathered materials, then thought better of the place. In 1856 they chose a site farther east.
The Old Meetinghouse
What they built there became the original Provo tabernacle, known as the old meetinghouse: 80 feet by 47, facing north, with an 80-foot belfry. Our first bishop, Jonathan O. Duke, laid the cornerstone and foundation with Philander Colton and James Smith.
Donated time and materials covered most of the cost. Many workmen were paid in food the people gave in place of materials.
Until 1890 the First Ward met in its basement, in a small adobe building and in members’ homes, Bishop Duke’s among them.
Too Small
When Brigham Young dedicated it in 1867, he declared it too small, so members built a larger one: the second tabernacle, now the Provo City Center Temple.
Our second bishop, John P. R. Johnson, warned its builders the center spire would be too heavy. He was right: it had to come down in the 1940s.
What Remains
BYU has uncovered the remains of the old meetinghouse’s foundation, along with some personal items. It stood just north of today’s temple until it was torn down in 1919.
Chapter II of V
Our Building
The ward’s third chapel, after the old meetinghouse and one on 100 East that Francis M. Lyman dedicated in 1890. The ward also bought a nearby schoolhouse and made it the First Ward Social Hall.
Its cornerstone was laid in 1928, the ward began meeting in it in 1930, and it was dedicated in 1939.
Three Wings and a Rotunda
Three wings meet at a hexagonal rotunda: the chapel, the hall and the classrooms, standing for spiritual, cultural and educational needs.
A Star of David is set in the rotunda ceiling. Three points turn the eye toward the wings, the other three toward the entrance and two rooms that were once hexagonal too.
Pope and Burton, the firm behind the Cardston Alberta and Laie Hawaii temples, designed the building.
The Painted Rotunda
The rotunda, chapel and cultural hall were decorated with painting when the building was new, and much of it was later painted over.
The photographs show the rotunda as it was: the star at the center of the ceiling, scrollwork across the beams, the gallery, and tiled fireplaces in the corners.
The Chapel
The same view from the balcony, three times.
As built: a painted frieze along the walls, iron chandeliers hung from the vault. From the 1980s until 2024: the organ in place, the painting gone. After the renovation of 2024 and 2025: chandeliers copied from the originals.
An Amusement Hall
What we call the gym was drawn as an Amusement Hall, for music and drama: a stage and a ballroom floor with no lines on it. The pickleball lines came much later.
Provo City required the hall, since the building replaced a community center. Its balcony, deeper than the chapel’s, was later closed in for the library.
The Room Above the Rotunda
The hexagonal third-floor room directly over the rotunda was built for special prayer meetings, with an altar at its center. Until the 1970s, forms of prayer now offered only in temples were held in local buildings under the direction of the Quorum of the Twelve. The altar was likely removed around that time.
The narrow spiral stairs that lead up to it.
The Sister Building in Raymond
Our building has a sister in Raymond, Alberta, built to the same basic plans. The Church sold it, and it is now a community center.
The photographs show it going up, then its rotunda and gallery, six-sided ceiling and chapel, each like ours.
Things Worth Knowing
Before the 2025 renovation, the Primary room had a small built-in sacrament table. Sacrament meeting used to be held in the evening, too late for most children, so they took the sacrament at this table during their weekday Primary meeting. The renovation removed the table.
The scout room, under the stage, was a dressing room with showers for performers.
The Relief Society raised several thousand dollars for this building by sewing and hosting dinners, banquets and concerts. Two of its minute books from the late 1800s and early 1900s, recording donations toward the building, are still here, digitized for the Church History Library.
Chapter III of V
Dedication & Rededication
President Heber J. Grant dedicated the building on Sunday, 10 December 1939, nine years after the ward began meeting in it. It was rededicated on Sunday, 2 November 2025, after a renovation in 2024 and 2025.
Rheta Kay led the music and Melba Fletcher accompanied. The quartet was Blaine Johnson and Wm. Purdy, Edward Sandgren and Ladd Cropper, with Loa Mathew at the piano.
A Thousand Silver Dollars
At a dinner for his 82nd birthday in 1938, community leaders gave President Heber J. Grant a copper chest holding 1,000 silver dollars. He meant them for the new Primary Children’s Hospital, and found a way to make them raise far more than $1,000.
His daughter Frances set each coin in a paperweight, and he sold them for $100 apiece (roughly $2,400 today). The paperweights went far and wide: Gordon B. Hinckley later recalled that his own father bought one.
The sales raised $86,000 for the hospital (about $2 million today). The 70-bed hospital opened in 1952 on 12th Avenue in Salt Lake City.
He kept a few back as gifts. He gave the Provo 1st Ward one of them at our building’s dedication, and it still sits in a display case in the clerk’s office.
Strengthened and Restored
The lights received particular attention. The original foyer light was found, restored and returned to the foyer. An original light from the cultural hall was found too, and used to make a new light for the third-floor “prayer circle” room. The chapel’s chandeliers were copied from the originals by a California studio that specializes in historical lighting.
The building needed seismic upgrades, and members were grateful that funding was approved to restore and preserve the original. Besides making it sounder in an earthquake, the work gave the building cosmetic updates inside and out, added an elevator to the second floor, moved the accessibility ramp to the north entrance, and updated the kitchen and bathrooms and added more of them. An electronic organ from Europe replaced the old one, keeping many of the original pipes on display, which is what you see in the chapel today. Since the organ is electronic, those pipes are a façade, kept to preserve some of the history of the original.
While the work went on, in 2024 and 2025, the Provo 1st Ward met in the Freedom Stake Center.
Home Again
The same hymn was sung at both dedications, nearly 86 years apart. In 1939 the choir and congregation sang “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning” just before President Heber J. Grant’s address and dedicatory prayer. In 2025 it came right after the dedicatory prayer, as the closing hymn.
The rededication began at 5 pm with the hymn “Welcome Home”. The three wards that meet in the building took part: Provo 1st, Provo 5th and Freedom 5th. The stake president presided and offered the dedicatory prayer, two speakers shared memories, another gave historical remarks, and a combined choir from the three wards sang.
