The city of Independence, Missouri, became important to the Latter Day Saint movement starting in the autumn of 1830, only a few months after the religion was incorporated in the state of New York in April 1830.

This is the place where the Garden of Eden, in which Adam and Eve resided, was located, and we are sent here according to the directions of the angel that appeared to our prophet, Joseph Smith, and told him this is the spot of ground on which the New Jerusalem is to be built, and, when finished, Christ Jesus is to make his reappearance and dwell in this city of New Jerusalem with the saints for a thousand years, at the end of which time there will be a new deal with reference to the nations of the earth, and the final wind-up of the career of the human family.

"Since Smith never issued an official revelation to the effect that Independence and the Temple Lot were the site of the Garden of Eden, Latter Day Saints (other than some adherents of the LDS Church) traditionally do not formally accept this claim as doctrine.

This organization made a failed effort in 1929 to build a temple of its own on the property,[8] which has been the only attempt to erect such a structure since the time of Joseph Smith.

[2] Some members of other Latter Day Saint groups have described the Temple Lot church as "'squatters' on the location,"[9] but that organization steadfastly defends its right to possess the property as its physical and spiritual "custodian".

This land had been purchased in the 1830s by Latter Day Saint bishop Edward Partridge to be the central common and sacred area according to the Plat of Zion.

On August 3, 1831, Smith, Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer Jr., Frederick G. Williams, W. W. Phelps, Martin Harris, and Joseph Coe laid a stone as the northeast cornerstone of the anticipated temple.

This middle window is designed to light the rooms both above and below, as the upper floor is to be laid off in the same way as the lower one, and arched overhead; with the same arrangement of curtains, or veils, as before mentioned.

[18] The Latter Day Saints had been experiencing considerable friction with their neighbors in Jackson County prior to this event, but Phelps's publication proved to be the last straw for many non-Mormons in the area—most particularly slaveowners.

[19] Enraged that the Mormons were apparently bent upon showing blacks that there was an alternative to slavery in Missouri, they burned the newspaper plant and tarred and feathered Bishop Edward Partridge and church Elder Charles Allen.

[19] The process set in motion by this event would end with Latter Day Saints being evicted from Independence and the surrounding Jackson County area later that year.

Boggs was widely perceived as a vehement "anti-Mormon", having issued his "extermination order" in the fall of 1838, and the Latter Day Saints blamed him for much of the difficulties and sorrows they had been forced to endure.

Following the war, and after he left office, Boggs settled in a house located three blocks east of Temple Lot on the City of Zion plot.

"[2] He did not act on this desire at the time, since he and most of the other Latter Day Saints were in the process of migrating to the Salt Lake Valley, and they remained uncertain of the attitudes of Jackson County residents toward the possibility of renewed Mormon interest in their area.

On April 26, 1848, Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, and Wilford Woodruff debated in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, what they should do about their claim on the property prior to the planned journey to the Salt Lake Valley.

While the main body of Latter Day Saints accompanied Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley, other groups remaining in Illinois argued that they should return to Independence to build the temple.

The first of these groups to relocate to the area was the diminutive Church of Christ (Temple Lot), also called "Hedrickites", which held its first worship meeting in Independence on March 3, 1867.

[26] Fetting's claim was officially endorsed by the leading quorum of the church and by most of the laity,[27] and ground was broken on April 6, 1929, with instructions that the temple was to be completed within seven years.

A doctrinal dispute within the Temple Lot organization about baptism ensued later that year, and Fetting was censured by a majority vote of fellow apostles at a church conference in October 1929.

Pattyson, reportedly a suspended member of the RLDS Church from Boston, Massachusetts,[32] was arrested and briefly detained after attempting to remove a fence placed around the Temple Lot.

[33] According to his detractors in the Temple Lot sect, Pattyson reportedly demanded that church officials sign ownership of the property over to him, claiming he was the "One Mighty and Strong".

Early on Monday, September 5, 1898, he damaged the tiny headquarters building by setting it afire, and then walked to the police station and turned himself in.

[33] After he testified in court appearances in late November and early December 1898, the New York Times claimed Pattyson was found "guilty but insane"[32] and he was sentenced to confinement in a mental institution in St. Joseph, Missouri.