Big Horn LDS Stake Office and Tithing Building - 535 - D.U.P. Historic Markers on Waymarking.com

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Big Horn LDS Stake Office and Tithing Building - 535

in D.U.P. Historic Markers

Posted by:  T0SHEA

12T E 699891 N 4973101

This building is now the Cowley Pioneer Museum, sharing the building with the Town of Cowley Administration offices. It is located at the corner of Main Street and S. Division Street.

This former Big Horn LDS Stake Office and Tithing Building is a grand old building, made of local sandstone. It is well maintained and can be visited at anytime. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers plaque with the year of construction and some of its history is at the right of the entrance.

Big Horn LDS Stake Office and Tithing Building

In 1900, Lorenzo Snow, prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sent settlers to northern Wyoming under the direction of Apostle Abraham Owen Woodruff. They were to establish two communities, Byron and Cowley, and build the Sidon Canal, which would furnish water from the Shoshone River to the communities.

In 1909, the Big Horn LDS Stake Presidency, President Byron Sessions and Counselors Jesse W. Crosby and Charles A. Welch, selected a location on the main street of Cowley for a building to be used for church administration and tithing offices.

This native sandstone building with its single-piece double columns was a tribute to the ingenuity and strength of these early pioneers. The stones had to be hauled from hills five miles north of Cowley, shaped at the site, and set in place without benefit of power equipment.

For many years after the LDS Stake office was moved to Lovell, the building was used for various purposes by the Cowley Ward, Cowley School District, and the community. By 1997, it was extensively remodeled to become the office of the Town of Cowley and the Pioneer Museum/History Center.

2003

No. 535

Sagebrush Camp