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. (David Kelly / For The Times)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. There are plans to turn the FLDS' former meeting house into a community center. “So that sense of safety, that sense of belonging was foundational for good mental health, and I took it for granted.”
“They say it takes a village, and we were a village,” she said. Everyone went to the same church, believed the same thing, and knew everyone else. Three was the minimum required to reach the highest heaven.Īs out-of-step as that may seem today, Shirlee Draper, 51, has fond memories of growing up in Short Creek with two mothers and 10 siblings. The FLDS prophet arranged marriages and decided how many wives a man could have. Utah and Arizona banned polygamy, but as long as the fundamentalists kept to themselves, the law was rarely enforced. Four decades later, Mormons excommunicated for refusing to give it up found a haven in Short Creek. The traditional Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints banned polygamy in 1890. “I think the winery will be a unique attraction for Hildale,” Tooke said, checking on a few of his 900 vines. There is a spacious new grocery store, a library, coffee shops and new schools. With the FLDS on the brink of extinction, Short Creek is now a place to score fresh sushi, a good amber ale and maybe a room for the night in a comfy resort. Tooke is among the thousands of people - outsiders and former church members alike - who have recolonized the community. The state of Utah seized the trust that held the church’s real estate assets and began selling them off, making land and home ownership available to everyone for the first time. It all began to crumble about 15 years ago after the arrest and prosecution of its notorious prophet, Warren Jeffs, who had taken extremism to new levels. Roughly 9,000 people lived in Short Creek, and nearly all belonged to the church, which owned their houses, controlled the police force and set the rules with little interference from secular authorities. I don't come from the past," winery owner Shane Tooke, 45, says of Hildale's past.
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