Site of Former First LDS Seminary

Address: 777 South State Street
Nine years after the opening of the Lincoln Junior High School here in 1912, the original building was expanded to more than double the original size. Ora Cunningham was named as principal of the combined high school and junior high school facility which took the name Lincoln High School.

Sometime after that, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established an L.D.S. Seminary program for Lincoln High School students in the nearby Timpanogos L.D.S. Chapel. Young members of the Church and many of their friends attended the seminary classes there for a number of years.

On September 15, 1929, the Sharon L.D.S. Stake was organized in Orem with the division of the Utah stake. Among the challenges the new stake presidency faced was the growing popularity of the seminary program, still housed across the street in the Timpanogos L.D.S. Chapel. The decision was made to construct a new seminary building on a plot just west of Lincoln High School. The building could also serve as offices for the Sharon Stake Presidency.

The Sharon Stake Seminary was completed less than two years later and dedicated by Elder David O. McKay of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on May 20, 1931. The facility was used intensively by high school students for the next 25 years. In 1956 the new Orem High School was completed, and the Sharon Seminary continued to serve Lincoln Junior High School students for several years.

Today, the former Sharon Stake Seminary Building is owned and occupied by the Orem Commission for Economic Development, and is meeting an important need in the community by financially mentoring new businesses.

(Orem Historic Homes and Sites of Interest.  Orem, UT: Historic Preservation Advisory Commission, 2009.) Used with permission.