"Onward To Colorado City"

Actually, our battle cry was "Onward to Fredonia", in 1980, when my friends and I travelled through the Colorado Strip, the fairly-isolated area north of the Colorado River around the Arizona-Utah border, on the way to Zion National Park. Fredonia is a town right at the border. We were passing through, but of course, others settled this area. Despite the natural beauty of the area, its isolation has always been problematic.

Nearby Fredonia is Colorado City, AZ, and Hildale, UT, where a secretive Mormon cult, under the erratic leadership of fugitive Warren Jeffs, still practices polygamy, and where the dread genetic disorder, fumarase deficiency, is spreading rapidly. Indeed, more people with this rare disease are found in these two towns than anywhere on Earth.

John Dougherty at the Phoenix New Times has written an excellent feature article on the disease, and the reaction of the State of Arizona to it. One story regarded Dr. Theodore Tarby's efforts to educate people regarding what was going on:

Tarby says he explained to the gathering at Town Hall in Colorado City that the only way to stop fumarase deficiency in the community is to abort fetuses that test positive for the disease and for the community to stop intermarriages between Barlows and Jessops, Barlows and Barlows and Jessops and Jessops.

Tarby says members of the community made it clear that neither choice was acceptable.

..."They have to outbreed," [Dr. Kirk A.] Aleck says.

But this is a very unlikely scenario for FLDS faithful, who practice a religious doctrine that requires men to be strictly obedient to religious leaders and requires women to give birth to as many children as possible to increase the sect's numbers.

"Who [from outside the fundamentalist Mormon religion] would want to go in there and join their population?" Aleck asks. "It's probably hard to recruit into that environment."

Indeed, even if an outsider wanted to join the FLDS community, such a person would not be welcome.

"They are discouraging any new blood," historian [Benjamin] Bistline says. "They've got this idea that their blood is pure and that they want to keep it pure."

There is also a companion article regarding the collapse of the local economy and civic life in the two towns. It's so alarming, it almost makes one yearn for the hyper-efficient government of the nearby Indian Reservations instead:

In the months since the indictments, evidence that the economy of the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, is plunging toward collapse is obvious. Many businesses have closed or moved out, the Colorado City and Hildale governments are facing serious financial problems, the electric utility jointly owned by both towns is in default on $21 million in bonds and the Colorado City public school district has been forced into receivership.

...

Residents already are constructing large walls made from block, steel, wood and stone around the perimeter of their residential lots and posting "no trespassing" signs on land they do not own.

...Unless the world does suddenly end, FLDS members in Colorado City and Hildale could face three difficult choices:

Defy their fugitive religious leader and pay property taxes to remain in their homes. Abandon the community they and their forefathers helped build and set off with their large families to Texas and elsewhere. Or refuse to pay property taxes or leave when authorities attempt to evict.

...

[Hildale Mayor David] Zitting, who will mark his 20th year in office in January, says there was a long period when living on UEP trust land and strictly adhering to the commands of FLDS religious leaders was a spiritual utopia.

...During last month's election, only 100 votes were cast for mayor in Hildale, population about 2,000, and he got all of them.

"It was a lower turnout than usual," Zitting says, as if that were the unusual aspect of the election.

One of three election judges overseeing the votes was a woman who, Zitting says, shares his household, which is a polite way of saying she is a plural wife.

... It is not as if Zitting was the only candidate who had a spouse judging the election. Patricia Jessop also sat as an election judge and shares a household with Hildale Councilman Dan C. Jessop, who, of course, also won reelection.

Such blatant conflicts would cause a firestorm of protest in most communities, and the election results would probably be voided. But these anomalies are a fact of life in the fundamentalist towns.

...As for Zitting, he is faced with the difficult task of trying to keep the Hildale town government in operation as it teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. Prophet Jeffs' order to FLDS members to refuse to pay property taxes is contributing to the financial woes gripping Zitting's town.