The Salt Lake Tabernacle, also known as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, in the U.S. state of Utah. The Tabernacle was built from 1863 to 1875 to house meetings for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and was the location of the church's semi-annual general conference until the meeting was moved to the new and larger LDS Conference Center in 2000. Now a historic building on Temple Square, the Salt Lake Tabernacle is still used for overflow crowds during general conference. It is renowned for its remarkable acoustics. Tabernacle Choir has performed there for over 100 years. Background The Salt Lake Tabernacle was inspired by an attempt to build a Canvas Tabernacle in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the 1840s. That tabernacle was to be situated just to the West of the Nauvoo Temple and was to be oval shaped, much the same as the Salt Lake Tabernacle. However, the Nauvoo edifice (never built) was to have amphitheater-style or terraced seating, and was to have canvas roofing. Construction The Tabernacle was built between 1864 and 1867 on the west center-line axis of the Salt Lake Temple. In 1892 it was the largest assembly hall in the United States. The roof was constructed in the lattice-truss arch system, which was devised by Ithiel Town and is held together by dowels and wedges. The building has a sandstone foundation, and the dome is supported by forty-four sandstone piers. Prior to its refurbishing in 2007, the overall seating capacity of the building was around 7,000, which included the choir area and gallery (balcony). Henry Grow, a civil engineer, oversaw the initial construction of the Tabernacle, where the domed roof was the most innovative portion of the building. Brigham Young, church president at the time, wanted the Tabernacle roof constructed in an elongated dome shape with no interior pillars or posts to obstruct the view for the audience (the gallery was added later). When Young asked Grow how large a roof he could construct using the style of lattice that he had used on the Remington bridge, Grow replied that it could be "100 feet wide and as long as is wanted." Eventually, Grow engineered the Tabernacle roof to be 150 feet across and 250 feet long. Skeptics insisted that when the interior scaffolding was removed, the whole roof would collapse. The roof structure was