*Membership was published as a rounded number. Source: Windall J. Ashton; Jim M. Wall, Deseret News, various years, Church Almanac Country Information: Washington[1]
The first branch in Washington was created at Tacoma near the end of 1899, with its first stake being created at Seattle in 1938.[5] Washington's first temple was built in Bellevue in 1980. There are now also temples in Spokane, Richland, and Moses Lake. Temples have been announced in Tacoma and Vancouver.[6]
Early membership
The first known member of the Church moved to Washington in 1852,[5] with missionaries arriving in Washington Territory from California as early as 1854. Enough converts were baptized along the Lewis River in the southwest portion of the state that a congregation was created in that area. Tensions escalated to the death of one member in 1911, who was given a secret burial at night.
Members of the Church helped construct the Oregon Short Line Railroad in the 1880s. By 1930, nearly two thousand members lived within the state with chapels located in the Puget Sound Region and in Spokane.[5]
In the 1920s and 1930s, local members participated in annual caravans, traveling to attend the Cardston Alberta Temple in Canada, which was the closest temple to the region at the time. Some caravan participants would travel more than 1,600 mi (2,600 km). With the completion of the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple in 1945 temple attendance shifted that direction until the temple near Seattle was dedicated in 1980.[7]
In 1940, a Spokane businessman and church member was called to be the leader of the Northwestern States Mission. Scattered missionary work had occurred in the region prior to this, but more concentrated missionary activity didn't begin until closer to this time.[7]
As part of the development around the White Bluffs area, a local real estate agent traveled to the Cache Valley in Utah to sell plots of farmland. Some Cache Valley residents had been interested in moving out of the area to farm because farming plots had become too small or scarce to be economically productive. About 15 families moved to White Bluffs and formed a branch there around 1940.[7]
Shortly after settling, church members and others around White Bluffs were forcibly relocated when the U.S. Government confiscated the land to build the Hanford Site as part of the Manhattan Project. Many of the relocated residents moved to nearby farming communities. Meanwhile, construction and wartime activity at Hanford became another means to bring Latter-day Saints into the state.
A large branch formed in Richland and after the war was over, the church was granted a lease from the U.S. Government to build a church building within the city. This church building, located near the city center, was the first non-government construction in Richland since the start of the Hanford Project in 1943. Groundbreaking was in 1949 and the Richland Stake formed as the third stake in Washington a few years later.[8]
After World War II, the Columbia Basin Project resumed to bring water from the Columbia River to the arid land north of Pasco. Many Latter-day Saints from Idaho and Utah settled on this land as new irrigated tracts were opened from the 1950s to the 1980s. Church members were particularly successful because many had prior experience farming in states where they came from, which are also fairly arid. A stake was organized in Moses Lake in 1954 to accommodate this increased membership and Adams County continued to hold the highest rate of church membership in Washington in 2010.[7][9]
A portion of the church-owned AgriNorthwest farm in the Horse Heaven Hills.
Church owned farmland
In the 1960s the church-owned Utah and Idaho Sugar Company worked with local investors to acquire and build irrigation infrastructure for farmland in Walla Walla County. This enterprise expanded Benton County in the 1970s and came to be known as AgriNorthwest in 1986 and is an investment property of the church as well as a contributor to the Church Welfare System and other philanthropic activity.[10] AgriNorthwest expanded in the 21st Century by buying more properties in Washington and Oregon.[11]
County statistics
List of LDS Church adherents in each county as of 2010 according to the Association of Religion Data Archives:[9] Note: Each county adherent count reflects meetinghouse location of congregation and not by location of residence. Census count reflects location of residence which may skew percent of population where adherents reside in a different county as their congregational meetinghouse.
^ abcStake located outside Washington with congregation(s) meeting in Washington
Missions
On July 26, 1897, the Northwestern States Mission was organized to search out Latter-day Saints who had moved to Washington, Oregon, and Montana. On January 1, 1968, The Pacific Northwest Mission was created with Joe E. Whitesides as president. On June 10, 1970, its name changed to the Washington Mission and ultimately the Washington Seattle Mission on June 20, 1974. As of 2023, Washington is home to seven missions, three of which are east of the Cascade Mountains, and four are on the west side.
Temples in Washington or with districts extending into Washington (edit) = Operating = Under construction = Announced = Temporarily Closed
Washington currently has four temples in operation. A fifth temple, the Tacoma Washington Temple, was announced by President Russell M. Nelson in his concluding talk of the Sunday afternoon session of the October 2022 General Conference on Sunday, October 2, 2022, to be built in Tacoma, Washington. [18] A sixth temple, the Vancouver Washington Temple, was announced October 1, 2023.
In addition, members in the Bellingham Washington Stake are served by the Vancouver British Columbia Temple[19] and members in and around Vancouver, Washington are served by the Portland Oregon Temple.[20]
Richland, Washington, United States April 2, 2000 by Gordon B. Hinckley October 28, 2000 by Stephen A. West November 18, 2001 by Gordon B. Hinckley 16,880 sq ft (1,568 m2) on a 2.88-acre (1.17 ha) site Classic modern, single-spire design - designed by A & E Services, Joseph E. Marty Architect
Stinebaugh, Thomas L. (2000). "Washington State". Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book. pp. 1316–1317. ISBN1-57345-822-8.
