Nauvoo Restoration Incorporated and a Formal Latter-day Saint Presence in Nauvoo

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) returned in a formal and dramatic way to Nauvoo, Illinois. This chapter discusses that return, beginning with the restoration work of J. LeRoy Kimball and the organization he headed, Nauvoo Restoration Incorporated. Over a period a several decades, Kimball led a team of renowned archaeologists and historians to restore Nauvoo into a Midwestern version of Colonial Williamsburg. Eventually, however, tensions between the historical and the religious led to a shift in emphasis for the site, as those directing Nauvoo Restoration embraced the proselytizing potential among the thousands who took to the road in the post-World War II tourism boom, visiting sites like Nauvoo.