At a small, private ceremony on Friday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints broke ground on its planned Cody temple.

Some work got underway at the site last month, after a judge rejected a legal challenge brought by a group of neighbors who opposed the location, but last week’s event represented the formal start of construction.

About 20 church members and leaders were present, including two of the church’s elders — First Counselor in the North America Central Area Presidency Steven Bangerter and Executive Director of the Temple Department Kevin Duncan.

According to a church news release, Bangerter offered a dedicatory prayer at the site that included asking for “a blessing on those in the community around the new temple.”

“We ask that they may feel a spirit of peace wash over them, granting them comfort and assurance that the presence of this temple will bring added joy, prosperity, beauty and unity to their lives and their community,” Bangerter said.

The project has been ensnared in controversy since last year, when LDS leaders announced their intent to build the 9,950 square foot facility alongside a residential neighborhood west of the Cody golf course. The structure’s 101-foot tower, planned nighttime lighting and the potential traffic all drew concerns during the City of Cody’s review process last year. Hundreds of area residents offered both opposition and support at a series of public meetings.

Following a convoluted and contentious review process, the city’s planning and zoning board approved the project with a minor change related to lighting. However, both the church and a neighborhood group, Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods, filed appeals.

In late August, a district court judge ruled that, regardless of whether they meant to, the planning and zoning board members approved the temple’s plan with no changes at their initial June 2023 meeting.

Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods is now appealing that ruling to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Meanwhile, after voluntarily holding off on construction for nearly a year, the church decided to move forward following the district court’s ruling.

Tensions still high

Feelings still run hot on the subject. When the church moved some of the construction materials to the property off Skyline Drive in May, one man went to the site to protest and suggested chaining oneself to a crane.

Cody Police Chief Jason Stafford said his department was notified of Friday’s groundbreaking around noon, or roughly an hour-and-a-half before it began. Stafford said the church relayed “that they had their own security,” but would contact police if they had any problems. Ultimately, “we didn’t have any issues,” Stafford said.

The church moved in chairs, audio equipment, green turf and plants for the ceremony, then removed them later in the day, making way for dirt work.

On Saturday, one of the temple’s most vocal critics on social media, Cody resident N.J. Pawley, recorded a video near the site where he charged that the groundbreaking was done “sneakily.”

“They knew that there would be a protest if they actually gave out the real time and date that it was happening,” Pawley said in the Facebook video.

Of the roughly three dozen temple groundbreakings that the church has hosted around the globe since 2022, Friday’s appeared to be the only one where the date wasn’t announced in advance and that didn’t include invitations to local government officials and other dignitaries outside the church. It also featured a smaller crowd, as some of the ceremonies have included hundreds of attendees.

As one example, the 2021 groundbreaking for the just-completed Casper temple was open to the media and attended by U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, local lawmakers and school officials. That project, which was built in a less populated area, did not prove controversial.

Church spokesman Sam Penrod said the groundbreaking in Cody was held Friday “to accommodate the schedules of those in attendance.”

Local impact

Among the local church members present were Glenn and Erica Nielson, who donated the 4.69-acre site to the church, and Glenn’s mother, Yvonne Nielson.

“It will be beautiful and peaceful and wonderful for the whole town,” Yvonne Nielson told the Church News, a publication owned by the church.

Temples host the church’s most sacred ceremonies and members in Powell, Cody and the Big Horn Basin currently must travel to the one in Billings.

Andy Jacobsen, president of the Cody Wyoming Stake and a Powell resident, told the Church News that having a temple close by will be “amazing.”

Unlike the church’s meetinghouses, or chapels, which are open to anyone, only church members in good standing may enter a temple once it has been formally dedicated. However, the church will host an open house for the general public prior to the Cody temple’s dedication.

Penrod said construction will likely take 24 to 30 months, though that’s dependent on factors like the weather. The Cody temple’s design is “nearly identical” to the recently completed one in Casper, he said, though it will feature different decor and artwork.

In the meantime, Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods is continuing its legal challenge and efforts to “relocate the temple.” The group’s initial brief is due to the Wyoming Supreme Court by Nov. 12.