Country Profile

USA-Tennessee

When missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived in Tennessee in October 1834, they preached at a Campbellite church meeting and baptized seven converts. Another 24 were baptized later. These missionaries were joined by future Church President Wilford Woodruff in 1835, who preached to several large audiences. During the ensuing months, the missionaries baptized 20 converts. By the end of the year, Woodruff had traveled 3,248 miles and baptized 43 people — three of whom were Protestant Christian preachers.

In 1844, Joseph Smith invited the Tennessee state assemblyman Solomon Copeland to run as his vice-presidential candidate in that year’s presidential election. Copeland, the husband of a Latter-day Saint, never replied to Smith’s invitation.

Tragedy struck the Church in Tennessee on August 10, 1884, when more than a dozen mobbers attacked a Latter-day Saint worship service near Cane Creek and shot to death two missionaries and two local church members. B.H. Roberts, who was in charge of the mission at that time, donned a disguise, traveled to the tense area and retrieved the bodies of the slain missionaries. Tension increased in the years that followed and, in 1888, a group of 177 Church members left Chattanooga and moved to Colorado and Utah. By the 1890s, public opinion in Tennessee became more tolerant toward the Church, and it once again continued to grow. The oldest existing Church building in the southeastern United States was dedicated in Northcutts Cove in 1909. The first stake in the state was established in Memphis in 1965.

Two temples were dedicated in Tennessee in 2000, one in Nashville and the other in Memphis. There are currently more than 50,000 Church members in the state organized into 12 stakes.

Style Guide Note:When reporting about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please use the complete name of the Church in the first reference. For more information on the use of the name of the Church, go to our online Style Guide.