Wellsville City, the oldest settlement in Cache Valley, was first established as Maughan's Fort in 1856 and renamed Wellsville in 1859 in honor of Daniel H. Wells, second counselor in the LDS Church's First Presidency and former head of the Utah militia. Bishop William H. Maughan broke ground for the tabernacle on April 3, 1902, and architect C.T. Barrett designed it. In 1903, LDS apostles Abraham O. Woodruff and Seymour B. Young laid the cornerstones. Built entirely of local materials over six years by volunteers working by hand or with horses and involving nearly every citizen, the building used rock quarried from the Wellsville Mountain, hand-chiseled foundation stones held with lime mortar, and red brick walls three to four bricks thick with cement trimmings. Those unable to do construction work contributed money earned from thinning beets, quilting, or selling grain, veal, cheese, butter, and eggs. Anthon H. Lund of the LDS Church's First Presidency dedicated the building on June 28, 1908. It retains most of its original Gothic architectural features, including an auditorium with a sixty-foot ceiling, wooden beams forming the ceiling dome that produce notable acoustics, two-story stained-glass windows visible throughout the auditorium, and a distinctive floor plan with the pulpit in the northwest corner facing semi-circular pews along a diagonal center aisle, along with curved handmade wooden benches and a lofty balcony for large-capacity seating. During the 1950's, the exterior was painted to prevent deterioration of the red brick, and in 1959 the original brick tower, which had risen 135 feet before burning in December 1936, was modified to its current lower height. The structure was designated on the Utah Historic Sites Survey in 1973 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 1981, the LDS Church sold the building to Wellsville City for $65,000, the same cost as its original construction nearly eighty years earlier. In 1995, the Wellsville Foundation, a non-profit private corporation of local citizens, was formed to manage and preserve the building. A prominent symbol of Utah pioneer heritage, it now houses the Wellsville Foundation offices and a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum and is also used for a variety of community activities and events.