Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, sit near Zion National Park, but the towns’ recent history has been shaped by a polygamous religious sect whose influence once governed daily life. For decades, residents said the prairie dresses, walled compounds and distrust of outsiders that were hallmarks of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints largely defined the communities’ culture and civic structure.
Now, the towns look more like the rest of the region, with weekend soccer games, bars and a winery. The Associated Press reported the change accelerated after courts wrested control from the FLDS, after the sect’s leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, was imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls.
Courts had placed both towns under supervision in 2017, removing the church from governance and policing. The process ended when the towns were released from court-ordered supervision last summer, about two years earlier than expected, according to the AP.
Willie Jessop, a onetime spokesman for the FLDS who later broke with the sect, said the transition required major personal and community change. “What you see is the outcome of a massive amount of internal turmoil and change within people to reset themselves,” Jessop said, adding, “We call it ‘life after Jeffs’ — and, frankly, it’s a great life.”
Some people described the earlier years of life in the towns as tightly knit but communal, including youth sports and mothers looking out for one another’s children. Others said the situation deteriorated after Jeffs took charge following his father’s death in 2002, with church leaders casting out men deemed unworthy and reassigning wives and children. The AP reported that on Jeffs’ orders children were pulled from public school, basketball hoops were taken down, and followers were told how to spend their time and what to eat.
Shem Fischer, who left the towns in 2000 after the church split up his father’s family, said the later period shifted in a “very sinister, dark, cult direction.” “It started to go into a very sinister, dark, cult direction,” Fischer said.
The AP also described how authorities historically treated polygamy in the towns differently before Jeffs’ rise. Stung by public backlash from a disastrous 1953 raid on the FLDS, authorities turned a blind eye to polygamy in the towns until Jeffs took over, the report said.
After Jeffs was charged in 2005 with arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to a 28-year-old follower who was already married, he went on the run and was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The AP reported he was arrested the next year, and in 2011 he was convicted in Texas of sexually assaulting two girls ages 12 and 15, receiving a life sentence.
As part of the 2017 court intervention, a court-appointed monitor, Roger Carter, explained that the towns had to learn how to function without the sect directing local decisions. Carter pointed out in progress reports that the towns needed to learn how to operate “a first-generation representative government.”
Carter also described the scope of the changes in the towns’ property and governance. The AP reported the FLDS had controlled most land through a trust, which meant that private property ownership was new for many residents. After oversight began, shared institutions such as the towns’ police structure were redesigned without the church in control, and supervision over the trust that controlled church real estate was turned over to a community board selling that property.
Even after the leader’s imprisonment and the removal of church control, not everyone agreed the towns’ problems ended with Jeffs’ arrest. The AP reported that civic leaders now prioritize residents’ needs, and that with Jeffs in prison and the church stripped of its governing power, many FLDS members left the sect or moved away. Other places of worship opened, and practicing FLDS members are now believed to account for only a small percentage of the towns’ population, the report said.
Hildale Mayor Donia Jessop said the community has made strides in rebuilding relationships severed by the sect. Jessop said family members divided by the church had quit talking to one another, but that people were reconnecting. “We started to realize that the love was still there — that my sister that I hadn’t been able to speak to for in so many years was still my sister, and she missed me as bad as I missed her,” Jessop said. “And it just started to open doors that weren’t open before.”
Longtime resident Isaac Wyler, expelled by the FLDS in 2004, described how he was ostracized afterward, including being refused service and having police ignore complaints about vandalism. Wyler said that situation has changed: for one thing, his religious affiliation no longer factors into encounters with police. He said a feed store, burger joint and the FLDS-run grocery store have been replaced by a supermarket, bank, pharmacy, coffee shop and bar. “Like a normal town,” Wyler said.
Newcomers also described shifting impressions. Gabby Olsen, who first came to the towns in 2016 as an intern for a climbing and canyoneering guide service, said people asked “all the time” whether she would move to a place known for polygamy. Her husband, Dion Obermeyer, said visitors often chuckle at the idea of marrying in Hildale, but are surprised when they see what is there, including “there’s a winery.”
Residents said the towns’ increased openness has also brought new social pressures, including drug use, the AP reported. And despite the FLDS influence waning, some polygamy persists. The AP reported that in late 2024 a Colorado City sect member with more than 20 spiritual “wives,” including 10 underage girls, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for coercing girls into sexual acts and other crimes.
Briell Decker, 18 when she became Warren Jeffs’ 65th “wife” in an arranged marriage, said she believes recovery will take several generations. Now working for a residential support center in Colorado City that serves people leaving polygamy, Decker said: “I do think they can, but it’s going to take a while because so many people are in denial.” She added, “Still, they want to blame somebody. They don’t really want to take accountability.”