Nauvoo — Tiny town is a tourist magnet

NAUVOO, Ill. — Chandler Whipple recently logged his third 1,000-mile drive from Salt Lake City to this tiny, out-of-the-way town overlooking the Mississippi River, where history and faith have forged one of Illinois' hottest tourism draws.

Fellow Mormons Mark and Holly Gold also made the long drive from Utah to western Illinois recently to revisit ground they consider sacred, built by church founders who were chased west more than a century-and-a-half ago amid waves of violence.

"People see so many Utah plates here they probably think everyone from out there has to make a pilgrimage," joked Whipple. "They don't, but a lot do."

Up to 1.5 million visitors a year have flooded this town of just 1,100 people since 2002, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened a towering, five-story temple that draws both Mormons and non-Mormons from around the world — some to gaze only at the outside, since only the most devout Mormons are allowed to enter.

The lavish temple, with a tower and spire 165 feet high, has fueled a fivefold tourism jump in Nauvoo, said Kim Farah, a church spokeswoman in Utah. Other attractions, including the home and grave of church founder Joseph Smith, drew only about 200,000 visitors a year before plans for the temple fanned interest in 1999.

Farah says Nauvoo's tourism jumped to about 1 million people a year after the temple was announced, then soared to 1.5 million when it opened in 2002, more than doubling first-year attendance three years later at Springfield's Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Crowds thinned slightly after the opening-year rush, Farah said, but remains well above 900,000 visitors a year, pumping $22 million into the region's economy in 2005 alone.

"Economically, this area has seen some tough times. Tourism has become that saving grace for Nauvoo and Hancock County," said Rustin Lippincott, executive director of the Nauvoo Tourism Office.

Residents say fears have waned that the parade of tourists might forever disrupt their quiet little town above a bend of the Mississippi River, not far from Keokuk and Fort Madison, Iowa.

"It's good for (the) town; it's good for business," said Mary Fernetti, who has owned a needlework and souvenir shop in downtown Nauvoo since 1985.

David Miller, a downtown business owner and president of the Nauvoo Chamber of Commerce, agrees.

"When visitors slid a bit after the first couple of years, it made people feel like this wasn't going to be a town overrun. These people like their quiet, rural way of life," Miller said.