I recently overheard a woman from church retelling the elevator shaft miracle to my mom, so I decided to find a good Mormon resource for debunking it. An article in BYU Studies should qualify, don't you think?

https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFLibrary/36.2RichardsSalt-b6542a86-5eea-4e3e-879a-4ec818314f07.pdf

Here's a great quote from the article:

"Jennifer Lund at the Museum of Church History and Art says stories proliferate
about vertical shafts being constructed in the temple without the
pioneer builders knowing their purpose. Later these shafts turned out
to be just the right size for elevators. Museum docents have heard
similar tales about workmen wondering why they were cutting channels in
the granite walls of the temple. Then, the story continues, when
electricity was discovered, these shafts were used to run wiring.

What these stories say, in essence, is that Mormon pioneers were
unaware of the industrial and technological advances of the nineteenth
century. Nothing could be further from the truth. Truman O. Angell Sr.
went on an architectural fact-finding mission to England and France in
1856. While there, he not only studied significant buildings and
monuments, but also sugar factories, iron works, and shipyards. 44 At
the time of his mission, the following developments had taken place or
were about to take place."

The author then details the elevators in Europe that were already in place at the time of Angell's visit.

I'm hoping to find a good, solid LDS source to debunk every one of these insidious lies. Anyone found any other good responses to other rumors from BYU, The Maxwell Institute, etc?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2012 11:58AM by Tall Man, Short Hair.

This is not an LDS source that I know of, but a reference to elevators' emergence circa 1850.

http://www.amazon.com/From-Ascending-Rooms-Express-Elevators/dp/1886536465

I think wiki said something about the early Romans having elevators in the coloseum to bring animals up from the basement level

not to mention the MoMo had over 45 year of temple contruction
when it was dedicated in 1893... plenty of time to plan for elevators.
Myth-Busted

His kite experiment had a metal wire go from the key to what was called a Leyden jar which was invented in 1745.