West Jordan - The geezer abroad in Missouri

The geezer took two trips for work during October.
One was to some boring place in Columbus, Ohio over LDS General Conference weekend.
The other one was to FRB in Kansas City, Missouri and there was actually a couple of small spots of after-work time. So here we go with some photos of places in and around Independence.
The second of the two quick trips was to the Clay County Jail in Liberty, Missouri.
I didn't know much about the Missouri church history sites, so there were some surprises for me, like this one..
The original Liberty jail was built circa 1830, just before the church folks got to Missouri.
It was used for Smith&co in 1838, for another for 50 years as a jail, and another 8 or so years for ice storage, before being demolished circa 1900. So it was long gone until the mid 1900s when the Church bought the property and built the exhibit shown in the next several frames.....

This frame is an overview showing the entrance to the LDS Visitor Center built on the original site to house a full-scale replica of the jail. The jail replica is housed in the octagonal enclosure in the near distance at far right. This frame is inside the dome and shows the upper of the jails two floors; Entry to the jail was through the door on the far side of the upper floor shown above. Apparently it was built in more than 1 phase ...The first phase was a log cabin with rough hewn logs (the logs in the replica are not original) approximately 1 foot thick. The county then decided that more reinforcement was needed, so the 2 foot thickness stone walls were added. The stone was intentionally built 1 foot recessed from the inner wood structure and the space was filled with loose rock. There were two grates - one on each side - for ventilation. This frame shows the lower floor of the facility is apparently where the detainees were housed, at least our detainees of interest: Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, Alexander McRae, and Caleb Baldwin. Sidney Rigdon was also detained initially but released early. About 1/2 of this lower floor is below ground, and entry is through a trap door from the floor above. It is about 6 feet high, which must have cramped the style of the taller occupants. No lights,no fireplace, no sanitation, ventilation through an open grate on each side of the jail. Did I mention crummy food. What a great place to spend 4 months confinement. This is the site of origin of D&C Sections 121-123. The ventilation grates were mentioned earlier. This frame is close-up of those. Liberty is about is 10 miles north of Kansas City on I-35.

The first of the two trips was to Independence, Missouri (an adjoining town 7 miles due east of Kansas City). The Independence church history site is a much busier place as to ownership of various pieces of property. The main area consists of a four-block area shared by various denominations (1/2 mile west of downtown Independence). (1) NW section - Empty future Jackson county temple site, now owned by Church of Christ (Temple Lot); (2) SW section - Community of Christ Auditorium; (3) SE section - LDS Church Independence Visitor Center; (4) SW section - Community of Christ Independence Temple

This frame is an attempt at overview of the 4 block area - sorry about the lighting. This is a view from the west side of the NorthWest block. In the foreground is (1) the empty future temple site (or "temple lot") dedicated in Aug 1831 by Joseph Smith. Background left is (2) the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) meetinghouse and headquarters facility, and far background center is (3) the Community of Christ Temple. The remaining parts of the area are (4) the Community of Christ Auditorium, off camera foreground right, and (5) the LDS Church Visitor Center off camera backgound right.

This frame is a reasonably lighted (taken earlier) view of the Community of Christ Auditorium - the approximate though much larger counterpart of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake. It is about the size of the Marriot Center. The northwest corner of the LDS Church Independence Visitor Center building is the foreground on the right, for an idea of the design style the church used - a lacy vaulted arch design. This frame is a better lighted and closer view of the Community of Christ Temple. So much for the photos, now a couple of other interesting observations from my stroll.... There are at least 2 other derivative denomination within a couple of blocks of the central church area of Independence ... some I noticed buildings for were: (1)The Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which separated when RLDS changed to CofC

The birthplace of Harry S Truman is 3 blocks west of downtown (extreme left distance of this view), and the Truman Library complex, where David Clark is on staff, is 2 miles north of this area.

One final Really Wierd thing I stumbled onto while talking to Mom on the phone.... Egbert J Gates and Dorothy Vernon Stiles were married at the Grace (Episcopal) Church at 415 West 13th Street in Kansas City, Missouri. The FRB site is at 27th and Main street - about 14 blocks away. The church is still there and is now called Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. It even has a web site. (http://www.ghtc-kc.org/)

This is a photo I got from the web site. I went over there the night before I came back and talked to Mother on the phone, described, took pictures, etc.