Portland Oregon LDS Temple
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Side view of Portland temple
Entrance of the Portland Temple
1989 dedication. First Presidency L-R: Gordon B. Hinckley (Counselor), who dedicated the temple, President Ezra Taft Benson and Thomas S. Monson (Counselor and now current church President)
Missionaries assigned to visitor center teach kids about Christ.
Two visitors watch a film about the Book of Mormon in visitors center
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The Portland Oregon Temple is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located on 7 acres of land near the intersection of Highway 217 and I-5 in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The temple's architecture features six white spires and a white marble exterior accented with green marble trim and topped with a green slate roof. It is 80,500 square feet in area, with four ordinance rooms and fourteen sealing rooms. 2014 marked the 25th year the temple has been in operation.
The temple in Portland was the church's first in Oregon, with the Medford Oregon Temple completed in 2000. In 1989, more than 314,000 people attended the public open house held before the temple was dedicated by Gordon B. Hinckley.
University of New Mexico historian, Ferenc Morton Szasz, places the temple in a group of Post-WWII temples built in western American States, calling the group of Mormon temples "the most impressive religious structures of the entire western postwar building boom."
The temple, the church's 42nd operating structure, serves members of stakes in the Portland metropolitan area, other parts of Oregon and two cities in Washington.
In 2012, the church added a visitors' center which is open to the public daily which, along with the temple's grounds, continues to be enjoyed by the surrounding community. The visitors' center was formally dedicated by Gary E. Stevenson in June 2013.