After 132 years, General Conference is leaving the Tabernacle
Salt Lake Tribune 1Oct99 N1
By Peggy Fletcher Stack: Salt Lake Tribune

This weekend's conference will be the last to be held in the historic Tabernacle on Temple Square. Next April, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will move its semiannual conferences to the new Conference Center, a newly built 21,000-seat hall just north of Temple Square.

Famous as the home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, its "able to hear a pen drop" acoustics, and its world reknowned pipe organ, the Tabernacle has been the site of all but five Church conferences since its opening 132 years ago. During the years of 1886-87, when the LDS Church was in severe disagreement with the U.S. government over polygamy, two conferences were held in Logan, two in Provo and one in Coalville. The October 1919 conference was postponed because of a deadly worldwide influenza epidemic. During World War II, conferences were open only to General Authorities and stake presidencies.

Among the memorable events of its history listed by the author: Every Mormon church president from Brigham Young to Gordon Hinckley has preached from the Tabernacle's pulpits, and the funeral of every church president except founder Joseph Smith and his grandson, Joseph F. Smith, has been held there.

Over the years, many young men first heard their missionary assignments as they were read in the Tabernacle during conference.

Seven U.S. presidents have spoken in the Tabernacle including Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

The Utah Symphony held concerts there for years and many well-known musicians including opera star Bevery Sills, pianist Artur Rubenstein, violinists Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern, and conductors Aaron Copeland and Leonard Bernstein have performed there.

Daily organ recitals began in 1915; "Music and the Spoken Word," short "sermonettes" along with music the by Mormon Tabernacle Choir were begun in 1929. The first radio broadcast of a church conference was in 1924, the first television broadcast in 1949 and the first satellite broadcast in 1980.