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The Bureau of Information

By Edward H. Anderson

The Bureau of Information has achieved remarkable success This institution was established to provide tourists, and visitors on the Temple Block, enlightenment concerning the Latter-day Saints and their doctrines and practices. It has been so eminently successful in its mission that much inquiry has been made, from time to time, as to how the movement originated.

Prior to the establishment of the Bureau of Information, much interest was taken in the entertainment of tourists upon the Temple Block by a number of zealous members of the Church. One of the foremost of these was James Dwyer, the veteran book-seller, well known in all the West. He had prepared a small card, later adopted for use by the guides after the organization of the Bureau, containing the articles of faith, on the reverse side of which was a view of the Temple Block, and the imprint, "Should you wish any further information concerning Church doctrines, please writes James Dwyer, North Temple Street, Salt Lake City." But there was need of more extended and greater activity in this line of missionary endeavor. Hence the new movement whose inception is here related.

From the records of the Salt Lake stake of Zion before the division into three stakes the following items are culled by Elder Benjamin Goddard:

At a home missionary meeting presided over by President Angus M. Cannon of the Salt Lake stake of Zion, November 30, 1898, Elder Benjamin Goddard, a home missionary, (the first and present director of the Bureau) recommended that some effort be made to place the gospel before the visitors passing through Salt Lake City. No action appears to have been taken at that time.

At a home missionary meeting presided over by President Angus M. Cannon, July 30, 1901, Elder Ephraim Jensen, custodian of the Tabernacle, thought it would be a good thing "to have some of the home missionaries or other suitable brethren appointed to preach the gospel to the large number of strangers visiting this city, some of whom seemed anxious to know what we believed in and to become acquainted with us and our institutions.

About the last Wednesday of July, at a meeting of the General Board of the Y. M. M. I. A., Elder LeRoi C. Snow referred to certain experiences recently had by him in the vicinity of the Eagle Gate, when he personally observed the work of "hack drivers" and the ridiculous information given to visitors. Concerning these Elder Snow writes to the Era:

In the latter part of July, 1901, a great many tourists passed through Salt Lake City on their way to attend the convention of the Epworth League in California. I was standing near the Eagle Gate when a party of tourists drove up and stopped within a few steps of where I was standing. The hack-driver then commenced telling his stories. After telling a lot of other falsehoods he continued:

"This is the Bee Hive House, where Lorenzo Snow, the president of the Church lives. The building is kept closed from the public. No one is ever permitted to go in there. We do not know what goes on there."