A few miles north of St. George, Utah stands a small town called Pine Valley. At first glance it does not look different from other small settlements in the area, but the area is home to the oldest Latter-Day Saint chapel still in continuous use. The Pine Valley chapel is unique from any other chapel in the state; its frame stands 54 feet high and has an attic that resembles an upside-down ship. Among Pine Valley’s settlers was a man by the name of Ebenezer Bryce, who worked as a ship builder in Scotland before joining the Church and emigrating to the US.  When he was commissioned to lead the construction of a chapel in the area, he is thought to have said that he didn’t know how to build a church, but he did know how to build a ship. 

Construction began in 1868 and was greatly aided by the operating lumber mill that existed in the valley. Almost 100 years later in 1960 the chapel was rewired for electricity and given minor updates under a Church-sponsored project. From 2000 to 2004, the LDS Church sponsored a massive restoration of the building that replaced the chapel’s windows, roof, and siding. It was rededicated by Elder Jeffery R. Holland, who has familial ties to Pine Valley, on May 15, 2005. 

The chapel’s original meeting room is still in use today and serves hundreds of LDS Church members each year. Its sacrament table, podium, pews, lighting chandeliers, and doors are original items from the chapel’s construction in 1868. The chapel’s walls are adorned with religious artwork, which is another unique aspect in comparison to other LDS meetinghouses. The attic has since been sealed off for safety purposes, but the chapel’s resemblance to a ship is still evident from within the chapel.

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Utah. Its mild climate and lush meadows drew settlers from the surrounding desert and created a prosperous, yet close-knit community.

In the summer of 1855, Gunlock Bill Hamblin and Isaac Riddle were herding cattle in the mountains of Southern Utah. One day, as Riddle followed a stray cow, he stumbled upon a beautiful valley seemingly untouched by man. The valley

was filled with lush green meadows, pine trees and fauna. It was named Pine Valley. 

Not long after the discovery of Pine Valley, Jehu Blackborn and Company built a sawmill and set to work. In 1860, Brigham Young called 300 members of the church to move to St. George and grow cotton as part of the Dixie Mission. Many of those who migrated grew tired of the heat and other challenging living conditions in the area and moved to Pine Valley. Pine Valley, 35 miles north of St. George, had a higher elevation and a milder summer which attracted many St. George families to seek refuge there. As a result, Pine Valley grew in size and popularity.

Robert Gardner Jr. and Erastus Snow were two of the settlers sent to the Dixie Mission. In 1862, on a trip from Cedar City to Saint George, they took a path through Pine Valley. They saw the operating sawmill and recognized room for growth. After telling Brigham Young of the potential for the area,  Young assigned them to build an additional sawmill in the valley. This project, known as the Pine Valley Mission, produced lumber for the Dixie Mission settlements and beyond. In Salt Lake, the timber was used to fashion the organ pipes for the Salt Lake Tabernacle. 

The secluded nature of Pine Valley fostered a tight-knit community. At the center of town stands the Pine Valley chapel, built in 1867. The chapel housed religious services, school, dances, and other events. Laura Gardner Snow said of her childhood in the valley, “Pine Valley was a child’s paradise. Summers were the most delightful.” Winters were full of sledding, sleigh rides and a magical Christmas Eve party in the chapel. 

After the sawmills shut down in the 1920s, many families remained to farm the valley and raise cattle. Although Pine Valley has remained a small town, it continues to be a favorite summer destination for descendants of Pine Valley pioneers, as well as other residents from nearby communities.

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While herding cattle during the summer of 1855, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had been called to settle southern Utah discovered the location of beautiful Pine Valley in southwestern Utah. The following year, St. George residents went to Pine Valley to harvest timber and establish several sawmills. As more people settled in Pine Valley, they constructed a chapel. They called upon Ebenezer Bryce, a shipbuilder from Scotland and the namesake for Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, to design and build the structure. There is some discrepancy regarding the methods used to design the chapel. Some sources claim that because he was a shipbuilder, the roof of the building is constructed to model an upside-down ship, while other sources state that Bryce used materials appropriately common for buildings, not ships. While the roof may look similar to a ship, the description provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives doubt to that claim: the building is made of pine wood, from “the finest trees in the valley, the same stand as those from which the pipe organ in the Salt Lake Tabernacle was constructed.” The foundation is made of local stone, mainly granite and red limestone. The building has three floors: a basement in which auxiliary meetings were held, a ground floor used for community purposes and as a schoolhouse, and an upper floor which contains the building’s chapel, used as the main space of worship. Following the chapel’s original completion, Latter-day Saints in Pine Valley have since added an attic containing pictures of the original settlers and other historical artifacts. Another small building, the Tithing Office, was constructed in the corner of the lot. In 1971, the two buildings, the chapel and Tithing Office, were added to the National Register of Historic Places. Both are still in use today by Pine Valley locals as a church building and community gathering place, making it the longest-operating chapel in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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