Short Creek Community
Community
Coordinates: 36°59′22″N 112°58′41″W / 36.98944°N 112.97806°W / 36.98944; -112.97806
Founded1913
Time zoneUTC-7 (MST)

The Short Creek Community (now Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah), founded in 1913, began as a small ranching town in the Arizona Strip.[1] In the 1930s it was settled by Mormon fundamentalists.

History

In May 1935, members of the Council of Friends, a breakaway group from the Salt Lake City-based the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), sent a handful of followers to the Short Creek Community with the express purpose of building "a branch of the Kingdom of God."[2] Fundamentalist leader John Barlow believed that the isolated Creek could provide a place of refuge for those engaging in the covert practice of polygamy, which was criminalized using bigamy statutes from 1935 to 2013 and 2017 to 2020. Within a month, the town's population more than doubled. The Council of Friends membership desired a remote location where they could practice plural marriage, which had been publicly abandoned by the LDS Church in 1890.[3]

On July 26, 1953, Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle sent troops into the settlement to stop polygamy in what became known as the Short Creek raid. The two-year legal battle that followed became a public relations disaster that damaged Pyle's political career and set a hands-off tone toward the town in Arizona for the next 50 years. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) later developed in the same geographical region and changed the name to Colorado City and Hildale to eliminate any ties to the Short Creek raids.[1]

Council of Friends

Mormonism and polygamy
Portrait of five caucasian Latter-day Saints, married to each other in nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint polygamy, against the backdrop of what may be a hedge. All seem to be posing; none face the camera. Leftmost is a woman, seated, her hair done in a high, braided bun, wearing a dress with buttons down the middle; in her hands are an open book. Center-left, standing furthest to the back (though still very much with the portraited group) is a woman, her hair done up but resting low, in a polka-dotted top and a scarf or ascot around her neck and a skirt. She carries a hat, held to her waist. Center is a woman, sort of kneeling or seated (perhaps there is an unseen stool she's sitting on?). She wears a white dress, her hair is done up in a high and large bun and she wears a headband. In her right arm she holds a hat, over her knees; her left arm rests on the lap of the man sitting center right. She may be leaning against his legs. Center-right is a man, wearing a suit jacket of some kind and a high-collared shirt. He is balded and bearded. His left hand is placed over the left arm of the center woman. Rightmost is a woman, her hair done up but resting low, sitting in a visibly wooden (likely handcrafted) chair. She wears a dress with buttons going down the middle. She holds a hat, which looks very like center's hat, over her knees.
A Mormon "Saint" and Wives by Charles Weitfle (ca.1878–1885)
Early Mormonism
Joseph Smith • Wives of Joseph Smith • Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy • Spiritual wifery
Latter-day Saints
Brigham Young • Wives of Brigham Young • Late-19th century Mormon polygamy • Mormon colonies in Mexico • 1890 Manifesto • Reed Smoot hearings • 1904 Manifesto
Mormon fundamentalism
AUB • Centennial Park group • Council of Friends • Current state of polygamy • FLDS Church • Kingston Group • List of leaders • Lost boys • Short Creek raid • YFZ Ranch
Antipolygamy laws
Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act • Poland Act • Edmunds Act • Edmunds–Tucker Act
Case law
Reynolds v. US • Cannon v. US • Clawson v. US • Davis v. Beason • Late Corp. of the LDS Church v. US • Cleveland v. US • Brown v. Buhman • List of polygamy court cases
Related articles
Celestial marriage • Freedom of religion in the US • Legal status of polygamy • List of practitioners  • Polygamy czar • Polygamy in Christianity • Polygamy in North America • Timeline of civil marriage in the United States
 Latter Day Saints portal

Main article: Council of Friends

The concept of a Council of Friends or Priesthood Council was central to the Mormon fundamentalist theology developed by Lorin C. Woolley and others in the Short Creek Community. The Short Creek Community was home to this council starting in the late 1920s. Since the authority of the Council of Friends pertained to the Priesthood and not to the Church, early Mormon fundamentalists, most of the residents of Short Creek Community had been excommunicated from the LDS Church. They felt that the existence of the Council of Friends gave them the right to continue solemnizing plural marriages even after Church President Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto strenuously disapproving of the practice.

Short Creek Community leadership

See also: List of Mormon fundamentalist leaders

The following are the leaders of the Council of Friends, and as such were also leaders in the Short Creek Community.[4][5][6]

Birth defects

As of 2017, the descendants of the Short Creek Community are reported to have a high incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic disease. It causes encephalopathy, severe intellectual disability, unusual facial features, brain malformation, and epileptic seizures.[7][8] The high rate of this particular genetic anomaly is attributed to generations of consanguineous or related marriages within the community.[9][10]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Zoellner, Tom (June 28, 1998), "Polygamy: Throughout its history, Colorado City has been home for those who believe in virtues of plural marriage", The Salt Lake Tribune, p. J1, Archive Article ID: 100F28A4D3D36BEC (NewsBank), archived from the original on May 5, 2000
  2. ^ Diary of Joseph Lyman Jessop, vols. 1-3 (privately published, 2000).
  3. ^ Kelly, David (June 14, 2022). "A real estate boom transforms a community with a polygamist past". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
  4. ^ Hales, Brian C (2009). "Questions regarding the described 1886 ordinations". MormonFundamentalism.com. Archived from the original on February 11, 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
  5. ^ "Official website of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints". The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
  6. ^ Hales, Brian C (2009). "Fundamentalist leadership succession chart". MormonFundamentalism.com. Archived from the original on February 26, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
  7. ^ Bayley JP; Launonen V; Tomlinson IP (2008). "The FH mutation database: an online database of fumarate hydratase mutations involved in the MCUL (HLRCC) tumor syndrome and congenital fumarase deficiency". BMC Med. Genet. 9 (1): 20. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-9-20. PMC 2322961. PMID 18366737.
  8. ^ Kerrigan JF; Aleck KA; Tarby TJ; Bird CR; Heidenreich RA (2000). "Fumaric aciduria: clinical and imaging features". Ann. Neurol. 47 (5): 583–588. doi:10.1002/1531-8249(200005)47:5<583::AID-ANA5>3.0.CO;2-Y. PMID 10805328. S2CID 10448322.
  9. ^ Gorvett, Zaria (July 26, 2017). "The polygamous town facing genetic disaster". BBC Future. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  10. ^ Hollenhorst, John (February 9, 2006). "Birth defect is plaguing children in FLDS towns". DeseretNews.com. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
Categories