In 1847 George Miller left the Church's winter encampment near Omaha, Nebraska, and headed south. Miller and his traveling companions stopped in Oklahoma at Tahlequah, established a kiln for making brick, and erected several houses before moving on to Texas later that year. Miller's stay in Tahlequah is Oklahoma's first recorded contact with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The first official Church presence in Oklahoma occurred in 1855 when Oklahoma became an area of Church missionary activity. Five elders from Utah arrived in the summer of that year to begin missionary work in the Indian Territories.
The early converts to the Church in Oklahoma were not wealthy, and the missionaries in the 19th century traveled with limited funds. The missionaries were dependent on the kindness of those to whom they preached, and they often found themselves in difficult and embarrassing circumstances. Albert Kirby recorded in his journal for 18 June 1898: "After bidding Brother Copple and family good by we started back to our field of labor. The brother told us to go to the ferry and to charge it to him but we [wanted] to save him from being a poor man, so we rested and started in . . . where a man told us we could wade. So we went in I got in too far the stream took me down I lost my shoes and sox and hung to a willow and three men came and got me out. There was not a pair of shoes in the settlement so I went bare footed until Monday."
In 1904 Oklahoma became part of the Central States Mission of the Church. Church growth in the state was steady. Missionaries were working in Tulsa as early as 1909. It was not until 1926 that six members of the Church in Tulsa met together and formed a Sunday School.
In 1930 there were small congregations meeting in Oklahoma City, Bartlesville, Henryetta, and Tulsa. The first meetinghouse built by the Church was dedicated in 1937 in Stillwater, although there were larger congregations at the time in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Additional Church meetinghouses were dedicated in 1951 in Oklahoma City and 1956 in Tulsa.
In 1960 a stake (group of congregations similar to a diocese) was organized in Tulsa. A second stake was organized in the fall of that same year in Oklahoma City. By 1980 Church membership in Oklahoma had increased to almost 21,000. Today there are over 33,000 members of the Church in Oklahoma in seven stakes with 75 congregations.
Church leaders announced plans to build a temple in Oklahoma City on March 15, 1999.
Previous
