Kanesville Tabernacle Historical Marker – Council Bluffs, IA - Iowa Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This historical marker sits in front of the Kanesville Tabernacle museum in Council Bluffs. The text reads:

“Kanesville Tabernacle. Religious and Civic Center of Kanesville (now Council Bluffs)

Between 7 and 23 December 1847, Mormon pioneers constructed the Kanesville Tabernacle near this site. From 1847 to 1849, it was used for church conferences, public elections, school graduations, dances, and other social and civic functions. On 27 December 1847, Brigham Young was sustained as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) by the unanimous vote of the capacity congregation assembled in this tabernacle.

The interior of the building measured about forty by sixty feet and could seat about one thousand people. Its log walls were thirteen feet high, and its floors were made of “puncheon,” the sawed off ends of logs laid into the ground. The roof was covered with wooden slabs and sod and was twenty feet high at the crown.

The tabernacle had two front doors, placed some fourteen feet apart in the center of the long south wall. A bay about twenty feed wide and twelve feet deep was added in the center of the north wall for a podium and choir benches. On the west end of the building was a sod fireplace with a wicker chimney. The chimney was plastered with clay that baked hard as logs burned.

The site, which was chosen in the winter, proved to be unsuitable in warmer weather. The April thaw revealed springs under the building that saturated and eventually rotted the logs. In 1849 the newly constructed Music Hall, located a few blocks to the south, began hosting civic and social events, and the tabernacle eventually fell into disuse and was destroyed.

Placed by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, 1994.”

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/10/2014 merlot visited it