Joseph Smith’s Red Brick
Store, visible through the trees at left, was the site of
many significant events in Nauvoo. Including, if I understand
correctly, some of the earliest temple endowment ceremonies.
The original building has vanished, unless you count a wall in a
Hotel Nauvoo dining room that the owners say was made of those
same red bricks. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints,* owner of all the Smith properties, has
reconstructed the Store from the ground up and runs it as an
historical museum.
I visited the Store but don’t seem to have taken any
pictures. Here are some postcard shots of
its interior.
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According to the very pleasant and well-prepared RLDS guides who
showed me around, the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum Smith were
concealed under the Spring
House until the 1920s.
The Homestead, at right,
includes the original log cabin that was the first home of the
Smiths in Nauvoo. Also later additions. It remained in the family
long after the Utah Church departed.
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