Town erasing the scars of sect’s rule
Residents choose brewery and pub over fundamentalists
The religious leader predicted many an apocalypse in his time as the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There was supposed to be one in 2005. Then it was delayed until 2012. Scratch that — 2016.
Each time, the destruction was to be the same. Earthquakes. Fire. Swift and dramatic — in the later years springing Warren Jeffs from prison and returning him to Colorado City, where his breakaway polygamist flock awaited.
But Jeffs, convicted in 2011 of sexually assaulting two child brides, is still behind bars, serving a life sentence. And a different kind of apocalypse is slowly descending on the town, fuelled by hops, barley and grains.
The Edge of the World Brewery and Pub opened in March on Center Street — a development unthinkable even a year ago. Last month, a vape shop opened across the street from the town hall.
In November, there will be four seats open on the seven-member Colorado City town council. Of the 11 candidates running, none is FLDS, assuring the sect no longer will hold a majority.
Unprecedented change is coming to Colorado City, and one need not be a prophet to see evidence of it taking hold.
None of this pleases Joseph Allred, a member of the current council and an FLSD member who is not up for re-election.
“When you bring in a lot of things America likes — particularly the vices like alcohol and tobacco and that sort of thing — you lose a lot of the enjoyments of the simple things,” Allred said.
“I like the quiet of a small town. I like peace. I like no crime. I like neighbours helping neighbours.”
Freeman Barlow, who is running for one of the council seats, doesn’t see it that way at all.
A former member of the sect, he tells an all-too-familiar story about being exiled by Jeffs and having the leader turn Barlow’s own children against him. Under Jeffs, “apostates” were driven from the community through shunning. Barlow returned to town after Jeffs and his brother Lyle were locked up. Barlow left the FLDS church.
Colorado City, he said, is ready to rejoin the world and dump the values espoused in the Jeffs era.
“For us to even have what we have right now is amazing,” Barlow said. “I think we can do even more.” But shaking the town from its past is a slow process.
Many roads through the town of about 5,000 remain unpaved after years of neglect. The gas station has pumps, but no fuel supply — it was cut off when Jeffs was running things. Many houses remain hidden behind tall walls built at Jeffs’ behest to keep residents from prying eyes. Other houses look half-finished, with exposed window frames staring vacantly across weedy fields.
A pile of cargo trailers lies haphazardly along Highway 389 — a two-lane road that takes people west to St. George, Utah, and east to Lake Powell.
Hildale, Utah, the town across the creek and the Arizona border, has been moving faster at remaking itself after electing a majority non-FLDS city council this year.
Mayor Donia Jessop said the towns, which share services such as water and electricity, are known collectively as Short Creek. Because the sect still controls Colorado City, Jessop said, it’s been difficult to make changes.
“They’re not interested,” Jessop said while sipping on a light beer at the brewery. She has been a force since winning election last year, immediately opening communication with the largest land owner in the Short Creek area, the United Effort Plan Trust, run by seven board members.
The town and the trust began identifying homeowners who were far behind in paying property taxes and homes that had been abandoned.
Jeff Barlow, executive director of the trust, said tax revenue would be critical to future funding of capital improvement projects in both towns. Jeff Barlow’s father is a cousin of Freeman Barlow. “There’s a lot of shared last names here,” Jeff Barlow said.
The trust was formed in the 1940s as a way for the towns to essentially share the land owned by the church, Jeff Barlow said. When Jeffs took over as head of the FLDS in 2002, he took control of the trust and asserted his power by kicking people out of houses he said they did not own.
Several former FLDS members sued the church in 2004, and Jeffs subsequently lost control of the trust. During their investigation, authorities uncovered abuses, scams and fraud that permeated the church — which, at its height, had about 10,000 followers.
Barlow said the number of “apostates” returning is sizable and most have settled in Hildale, given the secular nature of its city government. Getting co-operation from officials in Colorado City, where half the population is thought to still belong to the sect, has been impossible, he said.
But the trust has moved ahead. The main park in town gleams with green grass and new playground equipment. A train for children at the park is being fixed.
The Short Creek area sits in a canyon surrounded by dramatic red rock hills that offer hiking trails leading into Zion National Park. But it’s the brewery that seems to be driving most of the talk about Short Creek’s future.
Gwen Darger, one of the owners of Edge of the World, said she knew it would be a statement to open a bar here. She had no business or brewing experience, but believed the region was ripe for commerce. She got Nick Dockstader, a local brewer, to begin making a stout, IPA and pale ale before Colorado City was able to deny the application to make and sell beer. Darger said they did an end run by going directly to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control for approval. The state approved it in August.
“It was an avenue, so we took it,” Darger said. “To be fair, the city hasn’t given us any trouble.”
The brewery is still a small operation, though they would like to expand with outdoor patio seating and maybe even live music.
Customer Derrick Holm, 24, grew up in Colorado City under Jeffs. Holm said he is sometimes bewildered by what is happening in the town that had been in the dark for so long.
“It’s still hard to believe,” he said. “The religion kept us from getting bigger and from socializing. This has become a great place to finally meet people.”