Walls once surrounding massive homes brimming with wives and kids are being torn down, some of the houses split into individual apartments. The block-long FLDS meeting house is being turned into a community center. They scattered to at least 18 other states, Canada and Mexico searching for another Zion as their own began to slip awayĪ real estate boom is transforming Short Creek as outsiders and former FLDS members take over. Many FLDS members refused, believing their houses were consecrated to the church, and were evicted.
People living in the homes who paid the taxes, signed occupancy agreements and paid a $100 monthly fee could stay in them. Draper, who works for Cherish Families, a nonprofit that helps people from polygamous backgrounds in need, is the board president. In 2015, the state turned over management of the trust to a local board made up almost entirely of former FLDS members.
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That led to a series of investigations against the church and Jeffs that resulted in his 2011 conviction of sexual assault on two child brides - ages 12 and 15 - and sent him to prison for life.īy then, the state of Utah had seized control of the United Effort Plan, the church trust created in 1942 that owned nearly every house and business in town. We didn’t have the pop cultural references.”īut as the ranks of ex-FLDS grew, stories of the abuse they suffered began to emerge. “We didn’t celebrate holidays celebrated in the outside world. George, where she ended up, might as well have been a different country. She said leaving Short Creek was like “peeling off my own skin.” St. Not long into his tenure, he banished 20 of his subordinates and reassigned their wives and children to other men.Īs church members began to quit, Draper and her four children left town in 2004. His “keep sweet” mantra was a thinly disguised demand for total compliance. Hildale and neighboring Colorado City - just across the border in Arizona - made up the community of Short Creek, the headquarters of one of America’s most extreme religious sects, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS.Īll that changed in 2002, when Jeffs took over as prophet after his father died.Įrratic and paranoid, he ordered all FLDS children out of the local public schools and banned holidays, parades, games, toys and - for reasons that remain unclear - the color red. Not so long ago, the town was part of an austere theocracy that practiced polygamy, shunned the outside world and required absolute obedience from its followers. “I’ve never been put off by the history,” said Tooke, 45. Then he bought a vineyard and turned it into a winery scheduled to open this month.Īs for the town’s past, he didn’t dwell on it. In 2020, he opened the Water Canyon Resort, a collection of 20 sleek rental cabins. He figured that with its proximity to Zion National Park, Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, Hildale could be a magnet for tourists.
He bought an acre lot and built a 1,500-square-foot ranch house with stunning views of the surrounding red rock cliffs and mountains.
George, where he lived and owned a chain of hair salons. He soon discovered there were real estate deals to be had in Hildale, just 40 miles from St. In 2018, Shane Tooke decided his city was getting crowded and began looking for a place in the country.
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