The area surrounding the planned Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple in Cody was abuzz with activity on Tuesday, with trucks and a crane hauling in containers of building materials. But church officials said it was not the start of construction: Crews were simply shuttling some of the modular units from one temporary storage site to another.

“The Church is not yet commencing construction of the temple,” President Jimmie Edwards, the second counselor in the church’s Cody Wyoming Stake, said in a Monday afternoon statement ahead of the move.

Still, the activity at the site drew intense interest on social media: Multiple residents snapped pictures and videos of the crews moving the containers and shared them to local Facebook groups on Tuesday, along with plenty of opinions. One man launched his own protest, placing signs at the entrance to the property. 

The containers — which hold pieces of the planned 9,950 square foot temple — had been stored behind Y-Tex Corporation’s facility on Big Horn Avenue for roughly a year. But as announced last year, the ear tag manufacturer is beginning a roughly 11,000 square foot expansion. As a result, the area that had been hosting the containers is now needed for parking and staging materials, said Y-Tex President Glenn Nielson.

The containers are now temporarily located on a piece of property off Skyline Drive that’s owned by Nielson and his wife; it’s adjacent to the actual temple site — a 4.69 acre parcel the Nielsons donated to the church.

“This new storage location will avoid future crossings of public roads with these modular units during the temple construction,” Edwards said in Monday’s statement.

The background

Since LDS leaders revealed the planned location of the temple in March 2023, the project has been a lightning rod for controversy. Many neighbors in the adjoining subdivision — including those with the group Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods — contend it’s the wrong spot for such a facility, expressing worries about things like traffic and the nighttime lighting. A planned 101-foot high tower drew particular scrutiny, as buildings in that zoning area are generally limited to 30 feet in height.

Public meetings on the proposal last year drew hundreds of attendees and over 1,000 comments from supporters and detractors. The Cody Planning and Zoning Board narrowly approved the project in August with minor modifications to the lighting. Mayor Matt Hall withheld the project’s building permit for another month in hopes that a compromise could be struck between the neighbors and the church. However, no progress was made and the city permit was issued in September.

Meanwhile, Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods has continued to challenge the city’s approval of the project in Park County District Court. The neighbor group asked Judge John Perry to prohibit the church from building while the litigation continues, but Perry rejected that request in February. Although his decision theoretically cleared the way for the way for work to start, the litigation remains pending, with a hearing set for later this month.

Brought in early

Much of the temple construction process in Cody will involve assembling modular components built elsewhere.

Matt Burke, the LDS church’s senior construction project manager, has said the temple was about 70% completed at a facility in Alabama before the materials were wrapped up and shipped to Cody.

“All we’ll do on site is we’ll pour footings and foundations,” Burke told reporters at a June 2023 open house the church hosted ahead of the city’s planning process.

At that gathering, Burke specifically mentioned that the modular temple materials were already in Cody, referring to the spot behind Y-Tex.

“We’re a little ahead of the curve on this,” he said, though, “we’d hoped to have the property and the footings and foundations already done.”

During the planning and zoning process that unfolded over the following months, church officials expressed some willingness to adjust their proposed design — including offering to lower the tower from 101 to 85 feet. But the fact that the church brought the materials into town before the review process even began didn’t sit well with some critics.

It also caught at least two members of the planning board off-guard: Public records show that, after Cowboy State Daily wrote a July story about the temple materials being stored in Cody, Board Chair Carson Rowley sent a link about it to then-Vice Chair Scott Richard.

Responded Richard, “It was [a] foregone conclusion that it would be built before it ever got to us if you ask me.”

A protest

Although over a year has passed since the Cody temple was first proposed off Skyline Drive, opinions remain strong and interest high. 

One local resident, JJ Counts, filmed himself at the site entrance on Tuesday, reading a scripture from the book of James that chastises those who have hoarded wealth. Counts, who also brought signs, suggested chaining oneself to a crane in protest.

“This is worse than fentanyl in [the] neighborhood, pushing religion and government corruption,” he wrote in a comment posted to the Cody Area Classifieds Facebook group.

Powell resident Christopher Huhnke, however, said he was amazed at how many people were “choosing to be absolutely miserable about something that has at worst a minimal impact on their daily lives.”

“If you are comfortable enough in your existence that you can spend your free time stalking construction workers and complaining don’t you think that time could be better spent doing ... well, anything else?” Huhnke wrote in one of the several threads on the subject.

The significance of a temple

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, temples are “the most sacred place of worship on the earth,” hosting ordinances and covenants that include marriages and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors. Local members currently have to travel to the temple in Billings. 

Unlike the church’s meetinghouses, where everyone is welcome, only faithful members of the church are allowed to enter temples.

On a church Facebook post announcing the moving of the materials, church member Noma Walton, who lives near the site, said she and many other neighbors are excited about the temple.

“It will be beautiful and peaceful,” Walton wrote.

Church leaders have not indicated when they intend to break ground on the roughly $41 million project.