The Hotel Utah opened for business in 1911. The Mormon church was the majority stockholder, though as with the Marriotts, commerce trumped commandments and it sported the "largest and finest bar in the West."

The Hotel Utah was closed in the fall of 1987, reburbished, and reopened in 1993 as the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, this time wholly owned and operated by the church. Naturally, alcohol is no longer served on the premises.

I discuss the nexus between Mormon theology and Pelgianism here and here.

Labels: angel falling softly, angel notes, lds