Arizona Town Wedded to Polygamy, but Some Want a Divorce

The local sheriff is a five-hour drive from this desert hamlet of muddy roads and two-story homes, and state officials are closer to Mexico, but that is all a comfort to the residents.

Colorado City has a religion of its own, a law of its own and a way of life that has endured 50 years. There is one preacher, but several preacher’s wives; one mayor, but at least a couple of first ladies.

Strange as it seems, Colorado City is a polygamous community, an island of illicit activity ruled by a 97-year-old excommunicated Mormon who, residents acknowledge, dispatches daughters to the faithful for “plural marriage.”

“It’s a somewhat typical town of the Southwest,” said Mayor Daniel Barlow with a chuckle. He would not talk about newspaper reports that he has five wives but acknowledged that he, like most devout followers here, has more than one.

The town and its unusual way of life withstood a raid by Arizona lawmen 33 years ago and has not been challenged since.

These days, law officers are less worried about polygamy than about what will happen when the ailing spiritual leader, Leroy Johnson, dies.

Local, state and federal officials, who held a conference last fall to discuss Colorado City, say they fear that Johnson’s passing will bring a violent confrontation between the town’s two dominant families, the Barlows and the Jessops.

Authorities say Johnson keeps peace between the Barlows, who control the town, and the Jessops, who control the board of the town’s religious trust, the United Effort Plan. The trust’s property is valued on county tax rolls at about $17 million, and its total worth may be four times that, authorities said.

“There’s the possibility that things could erupt when their prophet passes on,” said Mohave County Sheriff Joe Bonzelet. “We’re not only talking about a religious faction but also large sums of money involving property values and businesses. And they’re willing to fight to protect their way of life.”

What is more, U.S. Atty. Brent Ward in Salt Lake City said he has received complaints of civil rights violations in Colorado City.

Ward declined to discuss the allegations or even confirm that they are being investigated, but some dissident residents say they have complained that leaders of the religious trust have hoodwinked them out of the deeds to their homes and pushed teen-agers into arranged marriages.

“We’re prisoners. We’re prisoners right in our own home,” said Trudie Bateman, a 30-year-old mother of six.

Mayor Barlow and other town leaders deny violating anyone’s rights and say the dissidents are only airing religious differences. There is no danger of violence in this close-knit town of 1,700, they say.

Sam Barlow, the mayor’s brother, a retired resident deputy sheriff and practicing polygamist, says authorities are misguided, and residents are free to leave.

“I don’t think there’s going to be trouble. I think that’s inaccurate, and it’s being said by people who have a peeve,” Barlow said. “We really would like to be left alone.”

If Colorado City’s founders wanted to be left alone, they picked the right place to settle.

The town is a five-hour, 260-mile drive around the Grand Canyon from the county seat of Kingman. Colorado City and its adjoining sister community, Hilldale, Utah, are located directly on the state line. Factory and construction jobs are a long drive away in the towns of northern Arizona and southern Utah, but isolation provides safety from laws against polygamy.

From the dirt roads leading into town, Colorado City looks like a normal desert settlement, with a gas station, a general store and a post office.

Once in town, the normal appearances change. Women wear 19th Century-style full skirts and children turn their backs to cameras. Strangers, called “outlanders,” are viewed with suspicion. One resident began taking pictures of a camera-toting reporter.

“I know a whole lot about the town I’m not going to tell,” snapped Permelia Johnson, who runs the Early Bird Cafeteria. “And I think you already know why.”

“If you’re looking for a wife, they’re hard to find here. They’re all took,” said one laughing man in the cafe, who declined to give his name.

The Colorado City telephone listings fill only 1 1/2 pages. Among them are 47 Jessops, 38 Barlows, 20 Johnsons and 15 Cookes.

The Mormon Church advocated polygamy until 1890, when it was renounced as a precondition of statehood for Utah, a decision few of the thousands of fundamentalists in the West believe was divinely inspired, as the church says.

In the early 1930s, Johnson, known as “Uncle Roy,” led his fundamentalist Mormon followers to Colorado City, then called Short Creek. Polygamy was a basic tenet of belief, so the site on the border of two states proved perfect: Safety from the polygamy laws of either Arizona or Utah was just a few yards away.

In 1943, Johnson and John Y. Barlow formed the United Effort Plan, a trust to which members pledged their land, homes and a percentage of their income, all in the spirit of brotherhood.

Ten years later, 100 Arizona officers raided Short Creek, arresting virtually every man and woman. Authorities dropped charges of adultery and bigamy against the 62 women and seven of the 33 men, and the cases against the remaining men, including Johnson, collapsed on appeal.

The residents, wishing to fade from the public spotlight, renamed the town, and authorities concede that polygamy continues. Residents say Johnson arranges the marriages.

Only last September, the town incorporated itself, with elected officials pledging to uphold the laws of the land and possibly seek federal grants.

Bonzelet said one fear of authorities is that a cache of weapons has been stored in the area in preparation for a religious war. Washington County, Utah, deputies searched a cave outside Hilldale in 1985 and found stockpiles of food but no weapons.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has received reports of weapons but does not have enough evidence to pursue it, agent Jerry Miller said.

“We’d sure like to go after it, but it will probably take an informant,” he said.

While authorities closely watch the potential for violence, the dissidents said officials have turned a deaf ear to residents’ complaints.

Johnson, who married at least 15 women, maintains strict control over the population through the trust, the dissidents said.

Financial Ruin

Those who step out of line, by refusing to give up a daughter for marriage, for example, face financial and social ruin, they said. True believers are rewarded with more wives, although the majority have only two, they added, and families with 20 children or more are not uncommon.

“When I don’t own my own place, I have to conform. If they say your daughter must marry that old (man) over there, you tend not to argue,” said Don Cox, who has two wives and 19 children.

In 1984, Colorado City’s close-knit image began unraveling with the disclosure that 103 of the 184 United Effort Plan beneficiaries had been removed from the roll and 18 additional names, mostly Jessops and Barlows, had been added.

The changes were made in the trust’s court filings required under state law and were announced in an open letter distributed locally by some of the dissidents.

Bateman, Cox and others who had religious differences with the leadership say they have been left without deeds to their property.

‘Something Wrong’

“After I got married, I realized there was something wrong here. If plural marriage is so great and so grand, how come it’s so ugly?” said Bateman, who is her husband’s only wife. “We’d like to sell our house and get out . . . but they won’t give us the deed.”

Cox, an electrical contractor, said he also lost all his work in town. Now he drives 40 miles to St. George, Utah, or 120 miles to Page, Ariz., for work. Without the equity of his home, he cannot afford to move his family.

Rulon Jeffs, a member of the trust’s board and adviser to Johnson, said names were struck from the roll because of “some serious moral problems.” He defended the policy on property ownership and deeds as something residents knew when they joined.

A woman who answered the telephone at Johnson’s house said he was too ill for interviews.

Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt has defended the residents as hard-working, God-fearing people and said he does not want to delve into personal lives.

And Mohave County Atty. Bill Ekstrom said as long as there are no reports of child abuse, he sees no problem.

“We have murders and rapes to worry about,” he said.

School Closed

Cyril Bradshaw ran the town’s private school until it fell out of favor and was closed. He now drives the school bus that takes the dissidents’ children 20 miles to Hurricane, Utah.

“The majority of people in town don’t even see what’s going on,” said Bradshaw, who has two wives and 21 children. “The power struggle is going on right now. I just want to get out of the way.”

Since childhood, Bateman said, girls have been taught that “Uncle Roy” is “the mouthpiece of God” and receiving a husband is a “revelation from God.”

“It takes a lot to start doubting. It’s a trap. You go through lots of guilt,” she said.

“What goes on here has to do with greed. Having control over people is a fascination for some people,” she said. “We know we’re being taken advantage of, but there’s not much we can do.”