Polygamists, raids, state intervention: Turning points in history of Hildale and Colorado City

"Short Creek", as residents call the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, was for decades steered by the tight control of a select group of polygamous religious leaders.

Those leaders pulled the community further and feature into isolation and disengagement from the outside world.

Here's a brief history of Short Creek, how it became what it was under Warren Jeffs, the now-imprisoned church leader who was convicted of child sexual assault, and why the community today so desperate to move on.

Take a deeper look: Colorado City and Hildale, once dominated by criminal polygamous sect, celebrate recent arrest

1890 — An official manifesto issued by church president Wilford Woodruff advises against plural marriage for all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, helping to pave the way for Utah’s eventual statehood in 1896. Many church members continue to live out their polygamous marriages but over time the practice is eradicated from the mainstream church.

1935 — Led by fundamentalist leader John Barlow, a group called the Council of Friends, a Salt Lake City-based sect that believed polygamy was a central part of their religion, begins sending followers to Short Creek, believing the small, isolated border town could be a place of refuge where polygamy and other fundamentalist church practices could continue. The population of the small community more than doubles in less than a month.

1942 — Polygamists living in Short Creek take a dramatic step forward in consolidating the church’s influence, donating their land and homes, often including large buildings and compounds that were built to house plural families, into a single trust called the United Effort Plan. Church leaders establish control of the trust and eventually use it to dole out properties to favorite members and to take properties away from those who leave the church or eschew its teachings.

1953 — In a move that Short Creek residents say left the community scarred for decades afterward, Arizona law enforcement officials move on Colorado City in a massive raid, taking nearly 400 church members, including 236 children, into custody. Most of those taken eventually find their way back to Short Creek and the raid, along with numerous smaller operations conducted in the same time period, becomes a central tale in church leaders’ warnings to members about associating with the outside world.

2004 — Warren Jeffs, who after his father’s death in 2002 had become the leader of the FLDS and its prophet, creates a large split in the community when he expels a group of 20 men, reassigning their wives, children and property to others. Insiders point to the incident as a turning point that led to a divisive split between many members.

2005 — Citing concerns that others could lose their homes to the whims of Jeffs and the church, Utah seizes control of the United Effort Plan trust, which had grown to more than 700 residential properties along with agricultural and commercial land. Court records estimated the value of the properties at the time at more than $100 million. Over time, the UEP transfers most properties to beneficiaries and sells some to outside buyers, although most devout FLDS members refuse to cooperate and are sometimes evicted from their homes.

Latest development: Arizona FLDS polygamous sect leader ordered held in jail

2006 — Utah issues a warrant for Jeffs on felony charges of accomplice to rape over allegations that he had conducted child bride marriages. He’s placed on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list and is eventually arrested in Clark County, Nevada, during a highway stop in which authorities find Jeffs was traveling with four computers, 16 cell phones, disguises, including wigs and sunglasses, and more than $50,000 in cash. He would spend years transferring between jails as he faced charges in Utah and Arizona before his eventual conviction in 2011 in Texas on two counts of sexual assault of a child and sentenced to life in prison. At trial, prosecutors presented evidence indicating he had fathered a child with one of the girls, who was 15. Jeffs was 50 when he was arrested and alleged to have taken more than 70 wives, including some pre-teens.

2008 — An armed raid of the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside of Eldorado, Texas, uncovers evidence of widespread sexual abuse within the church, including Jeffs and other men taking girls as young as 12 for wives. During the raid, police removed 468 children from the ranch and 130 women left voluntarily. At one point, authorities reported that of 53 girls found at the ranch age 14 to 17, 31 either had children or were pregnant.

2015 — In the single largest loss of life from any weather-related disaster in Utah history, 13 Short Creek residents are killed when a flash flood pouring out of one of the mountain canyons sweeps away two vehicles carrying three women and 13 children. Search crews from both states work for weeks to find all of the victims, with outside law enforcement working hand-in-hand with FLDS members. The tragedy scars residents of both towns, but many church members also gain more trust of outsiders after seeing the care shown to the flood victims and their families.

2017 — The FLDS is dealt a decisive blow in Hildale when former church member Donia Jessop is elected mayor and other non-church members establish a majority on the town council. Jessop and others hail the change as a key sign of progress in the community, ushering in a series of changes that would lead to the creation of a chamber of commerce, contractual relationships with county and state leaders for various services and the openings of many new businesses.

Related: Son who spoke out against FLDS leader Warren Jeffs dies at 26

2022 — Colorado City residents vote in their first majority-non-FLDS leadership after longtime mayor Joseph Allred announces his resignation. He offers no explanation, although former or non-FLDS members win a majority of seats on the town council. By this time, local authorities say most of the remaining members of the FLDS have scattered or left the church, which is still theoretically controlled by Jeffs from his prison cell. Some 80% of the properties in Colorado City and 90% of the properties in Hildale have been transferred from the United Effort Plan trust into private ownership.

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Timeline of critical points in history of Hildale, Colorado City