Leaving Behind a Polygamist Past: The Rebirth of Hildale and Colorado City
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HILDALE, UTAH (AZFamily) — Mayor Donia Jessop is what you might call a Western pioneer.
She’s the first woman to hold Hildale’s top office. During her seven years on the job, Jessop has overseen a truly remarkable transformation in her town and adjacent Colorado City, Arizona.
“I think the good things that are happening here speak for themselves,” Jessop said during a recent interview in Hildale’s city offices.
“The businesses that are popping up here. We have a couple of breweries in town. Here in Hildale, we have a winery; if you haven’t been there, it’s absolutely beautiful,” Jessop said.
Add to that a brand new office complex just being completed, new multi-unit apartments, vacation rentals, excellent public schools, and a large shopping center—it’s a long way from where the community was not too long ago—when the two border towns were best known for the cult-control of polygamous prophet Warren Jeffs and his FLDS church.
Jeffs, who took control of the FLDS community following the death of his father in 2001, ushered in the darkest era in the community’s history.
Hundreds of large families were torn apart at Warren Jeffs’ orders—prominent men were exiled—younger and younger were girls married off by Jeffs—then there were the lost boys, hundreds of young men forced to work as children only to be exiled as they came of age.
There have been nationwide manhunts— high-profile prosecutions—that infamous raid on Warren Jeffs’ West Texas compound and the Texas trial that sent Jeffs to prison for life for raping two girls ages 15 and 12.
But all that was in 2011. Today things are a lot different.
Content retrieved from: https://www.azfamily.com/2024/08/29/leaving-behind-polygamist-past-rebirth-hilldale-colorado-city/.
