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Local Mormon temple goes up Photo by Jim Craven Mike Luchterhand of Polar Welding and Fabrication, White City, tightens a bolt on girders that form the base of the Mormon temple under construction in Central Point. Church hopes to complete sacred building by January By JIM DAVIS CENTRAL POINT -- The only Mormon temple between Lake Oswego and Oakland, Calif., is beginning to take shape west of downtown. Within a matter of weeks, construction crews will place the roof on the building, raise a steeple on its top and glue thousands of blocks of granite to its side. "It will be the crown jewel of the valley," said Edward Hanson, president of the neighboring stake center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The project at Grant and Taylor roads began May 20. Crews spent the first weeks laying the foundation and installing pipes and electricity. Construction crews began erecting the framing of the building this weekend. The temple is due to be open by January. This is only the second temple to be built in Oregon and the 103rd temple worldwide to be built by the church. The other Oregon temple faces Interstate 5 near Lake Oswego. Temples are important to Mormons, as they are where marriages and other ceremonies are performed. The Central Point temple will serve more than 26,000 people in nine stake centers in Southern Oregon and Northern California. This drawing shows how the new temple will look when complete. The 10,800-square-foot building will cost about $3.8 million to build, said Ross Woodward, the church's small-temple construction supervisor. He is working with Vitus Construction Co. of Medford. The temple will be as much as a quarter smaller than temples such as the one near Lake Oswego, but the grounds will have extensive gardens and walkways, said Woodward, a retiree who is volunteering his time on the project. In the next few weeks, the framing and roof will be constructed. In about six weeks, crews will start gluing the three-quarter-inch-thick granite slabs onto the sides of the building, Woodward said. The granite -- thousands of stones and tons in weight -- is being imported from Italy. A large statue of the Angel Moroni will adorn the steeple of the building. Mormons believe the angel was one of the last prophets in the Western Hemisphere. A statue of the angel sits atop nearly all Mormon temples. Inside, one of the centerpieces of the temple will be a baptismal font, a pool at which church leaders will perform baptisms. The temple is part of a program initiated a few years ago by the church to build smaller temples in remote areas, according to Hanson. Southern Oregon was chosen on the basis of the number of church members in the area. The church has about 6,000 members in Medford and Central Point, he said. Plus, there are stakes in Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, Roseburg and Coos Bay. As the temple rises, a camera is mounted on the Central Point Stake Center next door to the temple site. The camera will take pictures of the developing temple every 30 minutes. "When we get done, we're going to take all of these and put them into a single video," Woodward said. Woodward said the contractors -- most of whom are not members of the church -- are being sensitive to the sacredness of the site and working well together. "I've never heard a word of profanity," Woodward said. "I've never heard a raised voice." People can log on to the Internet to learn more about the project. The site is at www.medfordtemple.com Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA