The St. George Tabernacle was completed in 1876. The project was used to provide work for the early pioneers. It is open to the public as a civic center. The main tower is 140 feet tall. St. George, Utah is the county seat of Washington County and a major transportation and commercial hub for the Southern Utah area. This city has a sizeable winter visitor population but has an official population of just under 73,000 people. The city is located in a small valley along the Virgin River. Because of its low altitude compared to the rest of the state of Utah, the weather is mild in the Winter and the area has earned the name of Utah’s Dixie. The city is the center of some of the most spectacular scenery in the continental United States and is also near several National Parks and Monuments, such as Zion National Park and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park. This panorama shows the compact size of the main part of the community but does no show the outlying subdivisions where a sizable portion of the population resides.