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St. George is a city in southwest Utah. There are a few interesting places to visit in town.
Introduction to St. George, Utah
St. George was founded in 1861 by Mormon settlers led by Erastus Snow. Originally named Dixie, it was meant to be a cotton producing town, but production never really took off. The city was renamed after George A. Smith (1817-1875), an LDS Church apostle.
Today, St. George is a fast-growing city with an important tourism industry. It boasts over a dozen golf courses offering year-round golfing as well as over 20 city parks and roughly 60 miles of paved urban trails. The city is a popular retirement and holiday home destination, and can be used as a base for Zion National Park. The Red Cliffs National Conservation Area is also nearby.
Brigham Young Winter Home
One of the most important attractions in town is the Brigham Young Winter Home. It was built by the Chesney family between 1869 and 1871. Brigham Young (1801-1877) purchased it in 1872 and used it as a winter home from December 1873 until his death. Free tours are available on a daily basis (as of September 2025). We had a wonderful guide who did a great job showing us the home and answering all of our questions.
Young doubled the size of the home and added an adjacent office building. The home was designed by Miles Romney (1806-1877) while his son, Miles Park Romney (1843-1904) designed the addition. He administered the LDS Church from his office and also oversaw the construction of the St. George Temple. After Young’s death, his family eventually sold the home to Jedediah M. Gates (d. 1947), St. George’s first dentist.
The Brigham Young Family Association acquired the house in 1955, and 4 years later, it became the property of Utah State Parks and Recreation. They restored the home and opened it to the public on June 14, 1963. The LDS Church took ownership in 1974. It closed for refurbishment in August 1975 and reopened to the public on May 29, 1976.
After visiting the gazebo and a work shed, we went inside the house and saw the parlor, kitchen, and dining room. The rooms are decorated with a mix of both personal items owned by Young as well as period-appropriate pieces.
Upstairs are a few bedrooms and a reading area. Brigham Young’s bedroom includes his bed, a cabinet with a writing desk, .
St. George Opera House and Social Hall
Down the street to the east is the St. George Opera House and Social Hall. It was originally built by the St. George Gardeners’ Club in 1864 as a wine cellar. After a decline in wine sales and pressure from the LDS Church, it was sold to the Social Hall Company in the late 1870s. They converted the cellar building into an opera house, and it hosted its first opera in 1886.
The local LDS Church acquired the property in 1900 and continued running productions until 1936, when the Great Depression forced them to sell it to the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. It was then used to process sugar beet seeds until it closed in 1979. The St. George Neighborhood Redevelopment Agency purchased the building in 1988, restored it, and reopened it to the public as an opera house once again. The social hall section now functions as an event venue.
St. George Art Museum
Next door is the St. George Art Museum. It’s housed in the former Warehouse No. 3 of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, which was once a sugar beet seed storage facility. The museum originally opened on the lower level of City Hall on November 20, 1990, and reopened in its current location on January 15, 1997. It’s open daily except Sundays. Admission is free but donations are always welcome (as of September 2025).
McQuarrie Memorial Pioneer Museum
A block south is the McQuarrie Memorial Pioneer Museum, which was established in 1938 by Hortense McQuarrie Odlum (1892-1970) and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. It contains exhibits about pioneers who settled in the area in the mid-1850s. Admission is free (as of September 2025) and it’s open daily except Sundays and Wednesdays.
St. George Pioneer Courthouse
On the next corner is the St. George Pioneer Courthouse. It was built between 1866 and 1870 and served as the county courthouse for 90 years. It was also used as a prison. The courthouse sat abandoned for several years and was slated for demolition until the City of St. George stepped in to save it. Restoration was completed in the middle of the 1980s.
The courthouse was occupied by the St. George Chamber of Commerce, who also ran a visitor center, until 2018. It closed again on November 18, 2023, for renovation, and is expected to reopen to the public on December 1, 2025 (as of September 2025).
Ancestor Square
Ancestor Square is on the northwest corner of Main Street and St. George Boulevard. It’s a small park consisting of art galleries, restaurants, and retail space housed in some of the city’s oldest buildings.
Zions Bank Park
Zions Bank Park is in front of the Zions First National Bank building on Main Street. It features a bronze statue of Brigham Young sitting on a bench.
Town Square
Just south of the tabernacle is Town Square. This 6.4-acre park opened on October 15, 2007, and features a splash pad, lazy river, waterfall, sculpture garden, and shaded pavilions. A carousel was added on July 4, 2011. It hosts several public events throughout the year.
St. George Tabernacle
St. George Tabernacle is on the northeast corner of Town Square. Construction began on Jun 1, 1863, and it was completed on May 14, 1876. It has been in use since 1869, originally hosting both LDS and non-LDS church services as well as court hearings, concerts, conferences, celebrations, and memorials. Today, it’s open to the public for special events and concerts. Tours are offered daily and admission is free (as of September 2025).
The tabernacle was designed by Miles Romney (1806-1877). All materials used in its construction were sourced locally, except the windows, which were shipped from Wilmington, California. The interior woodwork was hand-carved. When completed, it could seat 1,200 people. The tower stands 140 feet (43 meters) high and the clock was made in London.
Academy Building
The old Academy Building is on the southeast corner of Town Square. It was built by the LDS Church between October 1909 and September 1911 to house the St. George Stake Academy, the city’s first high school. In 1913, the name changed to Dixie Academy, and in 1916, it began to offer college-level programs as Dixie Normal College. The name changed again to Dixie Junior College in 1923. The Utah State Board of Education took over in 1935.
In 1963, Dixie High School split from Dixie Junior College, which moved to a new campus and eventually became Utah . The high school remained until it too moved to its own campus on August 31, 1966. Woodward Junior High School occupied the building from 1966 to 1976, followed by the Southwestern Utah Arts Council from 1977 to 1980. The city then acquired the Dixie Academy Building and restored it, using it for several different leisure purposes over the years.
Today, the St. George Children’s Museum occupies the building. It opened to the public on November 21, 2013. Admission is US$8.50 for kids age 3-17, US$7 for adults age 18-59, US$5 for seniors age 60+, and free for kids under 3 (as of September 2025). It’s open Tuesday through Saturday.
St. George Utah Temple
Finally, a few blocks south of downtown is the St. George Utah Temple. Construction began on November 9, 1871, and it opened on April 6, 1877. It’s the third temple built by the LDS Church and first in Utah after westward migration. It’s also the oldest LDS temple in active use and the only one completed during Brigham Young’s tenure.
The St. George Utah Temple was designed by Truman O. Angell (1810-1887). It has a floor area of 143,969 square feet (13,400 square meters) and combines Neo-Gothic and French Norman Revival styles. The construction site was swampland, so workers had to drain as much water as possible before laying the foundation.
The building used 1,000,000 board feet (2,000 square meters) of lumber that was hand-cut and hauled 80 miles (100 kilometers). Two types of volcanic rock were cut from a nearby quarry, with average stones weighing 5,500 pounds. Women decorated the interior with handmade carpets. Brigham Young personally paid for the baptismal font of 12 oxen, which was brought from Salt Lake City by train and oxen-drawn wagons.
After completion, Brigham Young was said to be unhappy with the height of the tower. In 1883, two years after his death, the tower was struck by lightning and caught fire. The tower was reconstructed to double its original height to reflect Young’s preference. It’s 80 feet high.
On November 4, 2019, the temple closed for renovation during which several 20th-century additions were removed and structural upgrades were made. It was rededicated on December 10, 2023.
Visitor Center
The temple is only open to members of the LDS Church, but there’s a visitor center next door. At the visitor center, you can learn about the history of the temple and its construction. We also watched a short video about family and the LDS Church. We were turned off by the staff who seemed a bit pushy about the religion, unlike at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
In the visitor center, you’ll see a cannon that allegedly served during Napoleon’s siege on Moscow in 1812 to crush lava rock into gravel. As the story goes, the cannon was acquired by the city after making its way to Siberia, then Alaska and California, from where members of the Mormon Battalion brought it to Utah. In reality, it was likely left over from the Mexican-American War. The cannon is on display in the visitor center.
Where to Stay in St. George, Utah
We stayed in St. George for one night en route to Nevada.
Coronada Inn and Suites
The Coronada Inn and Suites was our hotel. It was spacious but not exactly as clean as we would have liked. We weren’t too impressed with the staff, either.
