Rendering Provided for the Rapid City South Dakota Temple

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has provided an exterior rendering of the Rapid City South Dakota Temple.

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As previously announced, the Rapid City South Dakota Temple will be constructed on a 4.86-acre site at the northeast corner of Mount Rushmore Road and Moon Meadows Drive in Rapid City, South Dakota. Plans call for an 11,800-square-foot, single-story temple and an accompanying ancillary building.

South Dakota is home to over 12,000 Latter-day Saints, meeting in about 30 congregations.

The Rapid City South Dakota Temple was announced in April 2025 and will be the state’s first house of the Lord.

“God desires all of us to strive for His highest possible blessings by keeping His highest commandments, covenants, and ordinances, all of which culminate in His holy temples being built throughout the world,” President Dallin H. Oaks taught in a recent general conference.

Latter-day Saints consider each temple a house of the Lord and the most sacred place of worship on earth. Temples differ from the Church’s meetinghouses (chapels). All are welcome to attend Sunday worship services and other weekday activities at local meetinghouses. The primary purpose of temples is for faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ to participate in sacred ceremonies such as marriages, which unite families forever, and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors who did not have the opportunity to be baptized while living.