Climbing the Temple Bell Tower

The Bell Tower of the Nauvoo Temple

On Monday August 27th, President Irion took a group of us who had not yet had the opportunity to go up into the bell tower on a tour of the top of the temple. You have to have special permission and be escorted by one of the presidency to go up there.  The view from there is really lovely and reminded me a lot of how it looks from the top of the Space Needle. You can see the Mississippi River on the south, the west, and the north in addition to all the buildings on the Flats and the fields west of the Visitor's Center. On the east you have a close-up view of the water tower and the buildings and houses of the town.  

You get there by entering the small room between the two large sealing rooms on the fifth floor.  Then you climb the spiral stairs that wind around a large pole up three more levels to the section just below the metal dome.  There are 94 steps.  (Elder Nelson noted that there are 107 steps from the baptistery to the fifth floor making the tower almost half of the height of the temple.)  We could have gone up the last few steps into the metal dome, but chose not to because there are no windows and it is very cramped. These steps going up are open on the outside edge of the spiral and even though there is a hand rail if you are prone to vertigo this is not a happy place to be.  Since we couldn’t take any pictures we hope the memory will linger.  

Every few minutes we heard loud screeching sounds to scare the birds to keep them from nesting on the building.  There are clocks on all four sides of the tower.  They keep good time and serve as a beacon for the neighborhood.  We have been told that they have to be set manually when the time changes each spring and fall.  There is a large bell to strike the time on the hour and one "bong" on the half-hour.  It is very loud.  We had to watch the time so that we would be down before the chime.  Sometimes we can hear it at our apartment which is about a mile from the temple.

After we were all down Pres. Irion took us down to the sub-basement where we could see all the pipes and equipment needed to keep all the systems of the temple running. There is some storage there too. It is very clean and everything is painted white.  To exit we went through a maze of hallways to the tunnel which connects the temple with the brick security building on the northeast corner of the temple block.  In that building there is a security person on duty at all times monitoring the temple and grounds with closed circuit television.

Looking up at the Bell Tower from the sidewalk in front of the Nauvoo Temple

A couple days after we went up to the tower I came out of the temple after our afternoon shift and paused on the sidewalk to look up at the tower.  It gave me some perspective as to how high it really was that we climbed.  That brought to mind two thoughts.  First, I think that our church puts towers and spires on the temples and buildings to help draw our attention upward and with that action we will think about our God in the heavens.  Secondly, what an amazing marvel it is that the pioneers would even think that they could  accomplish such a feat as building the Nauvoo Temple or any of the temples built during the pioneer times.  This temple was built with modern construction techniques and equipment.  For the pioneers it was not so easy.  But they had the faith and determination to follow the prophet and if he said that it should be this big, then that is how big they built it.  Even knowing that they would have to leave it, they persevered until they completed the task they were given.  My service here in Nauvoo has made me love and appreciate their sacrifice more than ever before!