History group honors Pres. Hinckley

Shortly thereafter he announced the Palmyra Temple would be built, and expanding on dreams his own father, Bryant S. Hinckley, had for Nauvoo, Ill., President Hinckley stunned Latter-day Saints with an announcement during his closing address at LDS General Conference on April 4, 1999, that the Nauvoo Temple would be reconstructed.

First built by poverty-stricken Latter-day Saints in the early 1840s, it was dedicated in 1846 just as the bulk of church membership began a major exodus from Nauvoo and migrated west to the Salt Lake Valley. It was destroyed when an arsonist set fire to it in 1848.

The reconstructed temple was dedicated in June 2002 amid crowds in the hundreds of thousands, and the building, along with a major church reconstruction project of early homes and businesses in the tiny town, continues to draw tens of thousands of visitors annually.

More recently, President Hinckley oversaw the expansion and reconstruction of early LDS historic buildings in Kirtland, Ohio, where the faith's first temple was dedicated in 1836 and still stands (though it is owned by the Community of Christ). The Mormon Historic Sites Foundation was a major partner in that effort, which involved realigning a highway to accommodate visitors in the re-created village of early Kirtland.

A replica of the John Johnson Inn was reconstructed, along with a new visitors center that resembles a 19th century gristmill used by early church member Samuel Whitney. Restoration of the Newel K. Whitney home was also finished, and replicas of a former tannery, ashery and schoolhouse were built.

President Hinckley dedicated the buildings in May 2003, telling church members gathered at the site and via satellite throughout the region that "there is something unique and wonderful about what happened here. Nothing like it has occurred anywhere else in the history of the church, either before or since."

He felt similarly about an section of Wyoming wilderness the church has now leased from the Bureau of Land Management, known as Martin's Cove. The area is hallowed ground for Latter-day Saints, who have often heard President Hinckley speak of early converts to the fledgling faith who were making their way to Salt Lake City via handcart when early winter snows trapped them in the cove in the fall of 1856. Nearly 20 percent of the 1,075 emigrants died of exposure before rescue parties reached them.

Today, about 50 older couples now volunteer full-time at the site, part of which was purchased a few years ago by the church to allow construction of a visitors center that chronicles the history of LDS migration along the Mormon Trail through Wyoming.