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Prairie dress, walled fences and a distrust of outsiders were once the hallmarks of two Arizona towns—Utah The borders have mostly disappeared.
Today, Colorado City, Arizona, and neighboring Hildale, Utah, look like any other town in the picturesque backcountry near Zion National Park, with weekend football games, a few bars, and even a brewery.
Until the courts wrested control of the town from a polygamous sect whose leader and prophet Warren JeffsJailed for sexually abusing two girls, youth sports, cocktail parties and many other common activities were banned.
The towns were transformed so quickly that they were removed from court-ordered conservatorship last summer, nearly two years earlier than expected. It’s not easy.
“What you’re seeing is the result of a lot of internal turmoil and internal changes people Realign yourself,” said Willie Jessop, a former spokesman for the group. Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Later broke with the sect. “We call it ‘life after Jeffs’ — and frankly, it’s a good life.”
dark turn
Some former members have fond memories of growing up in the FLDS, describing mothers caring for each other’s children and playing sports with other children in town.
But they say things got worse when Jeffs took office after his father died in 2002. family Church leaders expelled men deemed unworthy and reassigned their wives and children to others. Under Jeffs’ orders, children were removed from public schools, basketball hoops were removed, and followers were told how to spend their time and what to eat.
“It started to go in a very sinister, dark, cult direction,” Shem Fischer said. He left the towns in 2000 after the church divided his father’s family. He later returned to Hildale and opened a hotel.
In the 1930s, church members settled in Colorado City and Hildale to continue practicing polygamy after the denomination broke away from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mormonism The church abandoned plural marriage in 1890.
A disastrous raid on the FLDS in 1953 sparked a public outcry, and authorities turned a blind eye to polygamy in the town until Jeffs took office.
In 2005, Jeffs went on the run after being accused of arranging a marriage between a teenage girl and a married 28-year-old follower. FBIA list of the ten most wanted fugitives before they are caught next year. In 2011, he was found guilty Texas Sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two girls aged 12 and 15.
Court ordered rectification
Even years after Jeffs’ arrest, federal prosecutors alleged the towns were run as offshoots of the church and denied basic services to nonbelievers, such as building permits, water and police protection. In 2017, courts placed the towns under conservatorship, excluding the church from government and police services. Separately, oversight of the trust that controls the church’s real estate has been transferred to the community board, which has been selling the property.
Court-appointed monitor Roger Carter noted in his progress report that these towns had been essentially theocracies for the past 90 years, so they had to learn how to operate “the first generation of representative government.”
The FLDS controlled much of the town’s land through trusts, allowing its leaders to decide where followers could live, so private property ownership was new to many. People who are not used to openness and government policies need clarification on whether decisions are based on religious beliefs.
Carter wrote before the court lifted the conservatorship last July that while the towns had accepted guidance from the sect in the past, their civic leaders now prioritized the needs of residents.
“Just like a normal town”
As its leaders were imprisoned and stripped of control of towns, many FLDS members left the sect or moved away. Other places of worship have opened and it is believed members of the FLDS currently make up only a small proportion of the town’s population.
Hildale Mayor Donia Jessop, who was distantly related to Willie Jessop, said the community has made tremendous progress. Like others, she reconnected with family members she had stopped talking to because of the church split.
After a flood in Hildale in 2015 killed 13 people, she was one of many former residents who returned to help search for missing relatives. She gets a chance to visit a sister she hasn’t seen in years.
“We started to realize that the love was still there – that my sister who I couldn’t speak for all these years was still my sister and she missed me as much as I missed her,” the mayor said. “It just started opening doors that hadn’t been opened before.”
Longtime resident Isaac Wyler said he was ostracized by the people he grew up with after the FLDS evicted him in 2004, with a local store refusing to sell him animal feed, a burger joint refusing to serve him and police ignoring his complaints about damage to his farm.
Things are very different now, he said. For one thing, Wheeler said, his religious beliefs no longer affect his interactions with police. Feed stores, burger joints and FLDS-operated grocery stores have been replaced by large supermarkets, banks, pharmacies, coffee shops and bars.
“It’s like a regular town,” he said.
People without FLDS connections have also moved in.
Gabby Olsen was born in Salt Lake CityHe first came to town in 2016 as an intern with a rock climbing and canyoning guide service. She was attracted by the mountains and valleys, the clean air and the 300 days of sunshine per year.
She said people asked her “all the time” if she was really moving to a place known for polygamy, but it didn’t bother her.
“When you tell people, ‘Hey, we’re getting married in Hildale,’ they giggle because they really don’t know what getting married is about,” said Olson’s husband, Dion Obermeyer, who runs the service with Olson. “But of course, when they all come here, they’re all very surprised. You’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a brewery here.'”
There’s still a way to go
Even though the FLDS’s influence has waned, it hasn’t completely disappeared, and towns are dealing with some new issues.
Residents say the new opening has brought common social problems to Hildale and Colorado City, such as drug use.
Some still practice polygamy: A Colorado City sect member who had more than 20 spiritual “wives,” including 10 underage girls, was sentenced to 50 years in prison in late 2024 for forcing girls to have sex and other crimes.
Briell Decker was 18 years old when she became Jeffs’ 65th “wife” in an arranged marriage. Today, she works at a residential support center in Colorado City, serving people exiting polygamy.
Decker, now 40, remarried with one child, said she believes it will take generations to recover from the abuses at the FLDS under Jeffs.
“I do think they can, but it’s going to take a while because a lot of people are in denial,” Decker said. “Still, they want to blame someone. They don’t really want to take responsibility.” ___
AP religion coverage is supported through the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US and grants from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The Associated Press is solely responsible for this content.