LOGAN – The historic Logan Tabernacle was dedicated Sunday by Elder Quentin L. Cook, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The tabernacle was full of people from every part of Cache Valley and the proceedings were broadcast to all Latter-day Saint stake centers throughout the valley.
Elder Thomas Checketts, an Area Seventy, conducted the meeting. He was also the first speaker. Checketts gave a history of Cache Valley and talked about how the tabernacle impacted his life as a young man.
“I remember sitting in that window seat above the balcony,” he said as he pointed to the northside of the building. “We could see the squirrels and there were a lot of them then.”
He asked the audience to raise their hands for events that touched their lives in the tabernacle, things like baptism in the Tabernacle font, spoken at the pulpit, sang in the choir or attended a meeting there.
He said the inside of the building was hot and sitting at the window his back was always cooler.
Paul V. Johnson, the new General Sunday School President of the church, also spoke. He talked of memories he had of the tabernacle. He remembered sitting on the window seat on the opposite side of where Elder Checketts sat.
Sister Kimberly Burbank, the Logan Temple matron, talked about her fond memories of the Logan Tabernacle.
She talked about meeting her husband, Jeffery R. Burbank. He was going to Brigham Young University and she talked him into going to Utah State University. She said her parents were die hard Aggies and she wasn’t sure they would agree to let her marry someone from the Provo university.
The final speaker was Quentin L. Cook. He also touted his days in Logan as being a special place to live. He spoke of the Norwegian saints who came here and built the temple. He spoke of the time Spencer W. Kimball came to their hot house and their mother wanted them to sing something.
“I think my mom wanted to sing a hymn or something,” he said. “We sang ‘Don’t Fence Me In.'”
Elder Quentin L. Cook dedicated the Logan Tabernacle on Sunday Aug. 26, 2024.
Elder Cook spoke of the number of different religious congregations in Cache Valley and said we should support them and their cause.
He quoted the Eleventh Article of Faith:
“We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and we allow all men the same privilege let them worship how, where, or what they may.”
Originally, Ezra T. Benson called a meeting in 1864 and told the members in Logan they needed to build a tabernacle. Brigham Young came and told them to build it bigger. So, they did.
It was finished in 1891 and was dedicated by Wilford Woodruff.
The speakers emphasized that early members of the church gave of their time and means to build the Logan Tabernacle and the Logan Temple at the same time.