Church Restores Chapel Building with a Unique Ministry

A small but historic religious building on 21st Street in Ogden, Utah, goes largely unnoticed to passersby. But it represents a significant story of worship and community for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This meetinghouse was constructed for the Ogden Branch for the Deaf in 1917. It is one of the first buildings in the western United States constructed for the deaf community. For 80 years, the sacred structure stood as a gathering place for the Church’s deaf membership and an inspiration for all deaf congregations throughout the Church. Since 2001, the building has been a part of the Church’s prison ministry.

After an 18-month restoration project, the building will continue to serve as a meetinghouse for the Church’s prison ministry. An open house for the restored building was held the morning of Sunday, July 27, 2025. The timing coincided with the 2025 Deaf Symposium in Orem, Utah.

Downloadable B-roll and SOTS

“This building is more, much more than a building. It’s a sanctuary,” said Elder Jason Jensen, an Area Seventy in Utah. “This building is the beginning of the deaf [Latter-day Saint] community. This is the trunk, so to speak, and all the branches started from this building.”

Darlene Cochran and her family have been part of the Ogden branch for the deaf for three generations. She returned Sunday for the first time in several years.

“It’s just unbelievable to see this building and the renovation and how beautiful it absolutely is,” Cochran said. “This is a place that teaches us the gospel. In the past, we didn’t have a lot of places to learn the gospel. You feel comfortable with people that are deaf and like you. You feel that connection, that way of interacting, that community, being able to discuss the gospel.”

Emily Utt, a historic sites curator for the Church, said one of the things she loves about this building is how squarely it centers on the ministry of Jesus Christ, who focused on “the least of these.”

“This is one of the best buildings in the Church. It is beautiful. And for its entire history it has been used by groups that are often on the fringe of society,” Utt said. “Christ ministered to the sick and infirm. He surrounded himself with the outsiders and criminal. And this beautiful historic place is filled with those that Christ would include in his ministry.”

Deaf Latter-day Saints were living in Utah by 1849. By 1910, as many as 200 deaf people lived in the area. The Utah School for the Deaf was created by the state legislature in 1884, and in 1896 the school moved to Ogden. By the 1910s, the Ogden Stake Presidency and School for the Deaf employees Elsie Christiansen and Max Woodbury began earnest conversations about improving the spiritual lives of students attending the school. Together they petitioned Church leaders for a purpose-built meetinghouse and creation of a branch for the deaf. Church President Joseph F. Smith was fully supportive. The building was dedicated and the branch organized on February 4, 1917.

The Church hired Ogden-based architect Leslie Hodgson to design the meetinghouse. The building’s Prairie School style was popular across the country at the time. For the building’s interior, Hodgson turned to the deaf community for design assistance. The finished building reflected the needs of the deaf community. In the chapel, a sloped floor, windows, skylight above the pulpit, and rostrum seating layout maximized the visibility of the speaker to a congregation communicating by sign language. An addition on the north side of the building in 1950 added a cultural hall and additional classrooms.

Renovations in 2024 and 2025 restored the building’s interior and improved its function for another generation. All mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems were replaced, and a new fire alarm system was installed. In the chapel, new lighting, pews, a sacrament table, and a pulpit were built to restore the building to its 1917 appearance. The restrooms have new tile, and the entire building has new carpet and paint. The exterior brick and concrete have been repaired and cleaned, and a new water-wise landscape has been planted.

“The historic features that highlight the contribution of the deaf community were carefully preserved,” Utt said. “This combination of old appearance and new building systems have been carefully blended so this sacred historic place can serve a new generation of worshippers.”

Indeed, the building’s enduring mission, as explained by Elder Jensen, is all about welcome and belonging for those who come to worship.

“May all who enter here, whether deaf or hearing, free or incarcerated, feel the spirit of Jesus Christ and know that they belong, that they’re loved,” Elder Jensen said.