The Arizona Temple pictured during the four-day dedication ceremony in 1927.

In 1833, Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith outlined the “look before you leap” plan for settling the West. The plan included well thought out plans for emergencies. Brigham Young later stated that if this plan had been followed for the exploration of the West “…many thousands of lives, many millions of dollars of property, and many broken lives and shattered hopes would have been saved.”
In the 1860s and 1870s early
exploration parties were sent into Arizona from Salt Lake City. The inability to cross the Colorado River and the Painted Desert kept the exploration parties from going
further south.
In 1876, the first Mormon
exploration party was dispatched by Brigham Young to explore southern Arizona and go into Mexico. The party left Richfield, Utah, on Oct. 18, 1876, and arrived in Phoenix on Dec. 23. While in Phoenix they worked with the Pima, Papago and Maricopa tribes as missionaries. 
In February 1877, the party established a headquarters in Tubac. From there, they explored southern Arizona and then into Mexico. The Apaches were still making life difficult for settlers in Arizona, so the party returned to Utah in December 1877, and reported to Brigham Young. After the journey, it was decided settlement in southern Arizona and Mexico had to wait until the Apaches were contained.
In January 1877, Daniel Jones and Henry Rogers were directed by Brigham Young and George Q. Cannon to take their
families and colonize and perform Indian missionary work as far south as possible. Jones, with his family of 12, and Rogers, with his family of 11, took 82 people south out of St. George, Utah, on Jan. 17, 1877.
They crossed the Colorado at Stone’s Ferry which was south of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. The party crossed the Hualapai Desert and went through Chino Valley. The group passed by Prescott, the capital of the Arizona Territory, went through Peeples Valley to Wickenburg and into Phoenix.
The group continued along the north side of the Salt River east of Phoenix to the McDowell Crossing of the Salt River. When they arrived at the crossing, Henry Rogers recognized the spot across the river as the location of his “vision” while he was receiving instructions from Brigham Young before they started their journey. Brigham Young had promised them that if they did what was right they would be “… guided by the spirit of inspiration, and would know the place they should locate, the same as the pioneers did, when they reached the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847.”
The group set up camp on the site and began the construction of irrigation canals. The camp was originally named Camp Utah which later became Jonesville and eventually Lehi. Lehi is just north of what would become Mesa.
In 1913, Mormon President Joseph F. Smith selected a site in Mesa for the Arizona Temple. When World War I broke out in 1914, planning for the Temple was halted.
In 1920, President Heber Grant selected a 20-acre site on the east side of Mesa on the Roosevelt Highway that had been homesteaded by Parley Sirrina for the site of the new Arizona Temple.
In November of 1921, the ground for the Temple was
dedicated in front of a crowd of more than 5,000. Ground was broken in 1922 and the foundation for the Temple was laid.  The outer dimensions of the building were 128 feet by 184 feet. The walls on the first floor are four feet thick. More than 130 tons of steel was used in the construction.
The temple was the ninth built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It cost more than $800,000 and was described as “…resembling a huge castle glistening in the sun.”
During construction and prior to its dedication, more than 100,000 visitors were given tours of all its rooms. It was called “… the Temple of Gathering as it is the only Temple in the church, which depicts the coming together of modern Israel.”
In 1927, a four-day celebration was held to formally dedicate the Temple. Thousands of visitors arrived in the area for the dedication. Visitors included Mrs. Susa Young Gates who was a daughter of Brigham Young. President Heber J. Grant presided at all the services.
The Arizona Gazette noted “while we have been busy
developing our farm lands, our power dams, our city buildings and residences, the Latter-day Saints have been completing a great shrine at Mesa that ranks with the finest in the entire Western Hemisphere…the Temple will bring a constant flow of visitors…those that come to do the work in the Temple, which their sect requires, and those that come to view it…its beauty and its importance will increase from this time on.”
— Mike Miller. Photo courtesy of Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, Archives Division, Phoenix, #95-2441.