Polygamists Selling Utah-Arizona Parcel To Help Buy Colorado Land
 Mormon Church Excommunicates Those Who Advocate Polygamy
 
The Associated Press
Denver ABC Channel 7
 
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A polygamous sect on the Utah-Arizona border is selling 1,300 acres of surplus land to finance other purchases in Colorado and Texas.

"It doesn't really fit in well with their community," Rodney Parker, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' attorney, said Tuesday. "They can use that money for these other projects."

An agent for the church, David Allred, purchased a 60-acre parcel of land near Mancos, Colo.

Allred also bought a 1,691-acre ranch near Eldorado, Texas, a year ago for a supposed hunting retreat. But a few months later, FLDS leaders acknowledged to Texas authorities that ranch was intended as refuge from pressure from officials in Utah and Arizona because of the church's tenet of polygamy.

The Texas compound has since grown to a dozen buildings.

About the same time as the Texas purchase, Allred bought the 60 acres of land in Colorado midway between Cortez and Durango, also supposedly for a hunting retreat.

The two Colorado parcels each had a few existing buildings, one of which has been remodeled into a four-bedroom, four-bath home, and a couple of new structures have been added.

The Arizona Strip parcel for sale doesn't border the church's base in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where an estimated 10,000 members live. It's listed for $4.6 million.

The insular FLDS enclave came to national attention early this year when church leader Warren Jeffs began exiling men, saying they had sinned, and dividing their wives and children among other men more faithful to his leadership.

Last summer, Jeffs and the church were named in lawsuits alleging he and others sexually molested a boy, were ousting male adolescents and young men, and fired one member from his job because he no longer adhered to the faith. All three lawsuits are pending in Utah's 3rd District Court.

Polygamy is among the teachings of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith. But the practice was abandoned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than a century ago as the Utah territory sought statehood.

The Utah Constitution bans polygamy and the mainstream Mormon church now excommunicates those who advocate it. But it's believed that tens of thousands in Utah and more than 30,000 across the West continue to practice it.

Many remaining polygamists describe themselves as fundamentalist Mormons, living ultra-religious lives in small, secretive sects in the West.
 
TheDenverChannel.com
Originally published November 10, 2004
 
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