Childhood home of 12th LDS/Mormon President-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball

Having moved to Thatcher from Salt Lake City, Utah in 1897, the Kimball family would not move into this home until Spencer W. Kimball was seven years old (1902). Spencer W. Kimball lived in this home until he was married at the age of 22 (not counting the almost three years he was away on a church mission). Spencer W. Kimball was baptized in a canal near the home that is still in use today. The Kimball parents are buried in a local cemetery and the house is not privately-owned. Because of his childhood here, Pres. Spencer W. Kimball would alway call Arizona home and also worked hard to help sustain physically and spiritually the local American Indian tribes he was able to know while living here.

*From Mormon Historic Sites:

"Born in Salt Lake City in 1895, Spencer W. Kimball was the grandson of Church leaders Heber C. Kimball (paternal) and Edwin D. Woolley (maternal). His parents were Andrew and Olive Kimball. Young Spencer moved with his family to Thatcher, Arizona when he was two years old. His father was called to serve as stake president there.

This was the home in which Spencer W. Kimball lived from about the age of seven until his marriage at age twenty-two except the time he was away serving a mission. Young Spencer was living there when he received the devastating news that his mother had passed away. He was baptized in a nearby canal which is still in use today.

Spencer W. Kimball began married life in the Gila Valley where, over time, he became successful in business. H was eventually called to serve as stake president of the Mt. Graham Stake in 1938. He and his family left Arizona when he was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1943. Elder Kimball was called at the same time as Ezra Taft Benson who would eventually succeed him as president of the Church. Given seniority, President Kimball served as the twelfth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1973-1985.

His mother, father, and step-mother are buried in a family plot in Thatcher. The Thatcher, Arizona home is extant and privately owned."

Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball, 14-71. Francis M. Gibbons, Spencer W. Kimball: Resolute Disciple, Prophet of God, 1-68. Edward L. Kimball in Leonard J. Arrington, ed., The Presidents of the Church, 373-379.