The St. Louis Missouri Temple is one of a series of detailed pencil drawings and paintings created by the artist Chad S. Hawkins. In 1989, at the age of seventeen, Chad started this unique temple series, becoming the original LDS artist to involve hidden spiritual images in his artwork. Before drawing each temple, Chad researches its history, construction, and beautiful surroundings. He then returns to his studio to draw the temple by referring to his notes, sketches, and photographs.
St. Louis has been a city of pioneers as surely as any other city in the church's history, for a pioneer is someone who goes before, preparing the way for others. Throughout the Missouri and Illinois periods of the church, and up to the coming of the railroad to Utah in 1869 and beyond, St. Louis was the most important non-Mormon city in church history. St. Louis paid two important rolls in early Mormon history?as a city of refuge and as an immigrant center. As a large and tolerant city, it gave protection to Mormon refugees in the 1830s when they fled persecution in western Missouri and Illinois during the mid-1840s. Until at least 1855, the city served as the main route for thousands of European converts who immigrated first to Nauvoo and later to Utah. The St. Louis Temple features a spire rising 150 feet. The exterior of the temple is white granite and cast stone, which is enhanced by art-glass windows. The temple site is enclosed by an attractive six-foot decorative iron fence with a sage green patina. The grounds are beautified with grass, trees, shrubs, flowers, and a water fountain. In tribute to the legacy of the faithful pioneers in St. Louis, the artist has placed a man in the distant trees, mounted on a horse and leading a covered wagon pulled by a team of oxen. Above the pioneers in the clouds is world-famous Gateway Arch (1964), which commemorates St. Louis role as a gateway to the West.
This comes in a 11x14 or a 16x20 print.