Lake Powell is a beautiful reservoir on the Colorado River that flows between Utah and Arizona in the western United States. It’s the second largest human-made reservoir in North America behind only Lake Mead after the construction of Hoover Dam. There’s a boat launch in Page, Arizona, where you’ll find hundreds of docked house boats and party barges on standby just waiting to get lost. It’s the host city to over two million tourists annually. This is where everybody launches their power boats and personal watercraft, ties them up to be towed behind the houseboat and “bon voyage!” My buddy’s parents owned one of those house boats. I spent three summers in a row there, between the ages of 16-18, memorizing the serenity of Lake Powell.
Josh.one and I drove to that boat launch those summers from Los Angeles, California, about 400 miles one way, still some of the best road trips I’ve had. Each year we would stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, pick up a new CD at Warehouse Music and continue toward Page, which meant drive directly through the neighboring town of Colorado City, a place neither of us had heard of.
It didn’t mean anything to us for the same reason we had to stop at Warehouse Music for a CD, remember that place? Remember CD’s?! Music and #information wasn’t in the palm of our hands yet. Warehouse was our only source for concert tickets too. It would’ve been 1999, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs still ruled his community freely as president while ignoring law and human ethics in the name of #religion. He would’ve been at the peak of his power when we drove through there—in just a few more years he became a fugitive on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list for arranging illegal marriages between adult male followers and underage girls in Utah. In 2007 he was arrested and, in 2011, he was convicted of sexual conduct (“conduct”) with minors, incest and two counts of rape. He’s currently serving a life sentence plus 20 years in a southeast Texas prison.
After passing through Colorado City those summers on our way to Lake Powell I began researching things like lost boys and placement marriage. Being the curious and understandably stupid teenagers that we were, we decided we should stop and check the town out for ourselves. We wouldn’t stay long, that was the plan, just long enough to look around and maybe get something to eat. We were on our way home and we would have been 18 years old that summer with the mentality of, well, “kids!” Next stop:
The town entrance and the town exit are the same single lane patch of pavement perpendicular to US Highway 59. We exited the highway and immediately the pavement ended, they’re dirt roads now for as far as we can see and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be anywhere to eat. We continued driving into town. All of the houses have plywood exterior and plywood roofs, no paint, no stucco or siding of any kind and no shingles or any type of protection on the roof tops, just large, two and three story houses protected by untreated plywood. None of the houses have garages or vehicles outside, just a few minimal windows but every house has the same custom looking plaque next to the front door with the same word on it. We couldn’t tell what the plaque’s said so I stopped outside one of the houses to get a better look. The letters are cut out of thick, 1/2 inch steel plate, they’ve been cut and shaped with nice tools, most likely a gas axe and every house has one.
It wasn’t a ‘word,’ the doors of these houses all read “F.L.D.S.” Just then about four or five little blonde headed kids, each dressed in identical denim clothing, appeared and ran around the side of the house before jumping into a crawl space that led under the house—most likely to a basement. They vanished as quickly as they appeared. We hung out for another minute waiting for the kids to reappear but they didn’t. We continued cruising around, checking out the neighborhood.
We kept noticing groups of small children running to either side of these homes to jump into a crawl space as we drove by and every house seems to have one. All of the girls are wearing denim dresses with white, long sleeve shirts and the boys are all wearing denim pants with white, long sleeve shirts. We’re the only vehicle on the roads and everything is real quiet. A family of about 10 boys and girls, each wearing the same clothing combinations, including an older woman who’s obviously the chaperone are all walking together while holding hands on the road in front of us. I slowed the vehicle to a complete stop.
Jeffs’ pictured with his wives/daughters.
They heard us and most of them turned around, when they did, they saw us and quickly turned back around, hurrying to the side of the road. We drove by slowly with our hands up, motioning a wave, nobody made eye contact with us. We continued driving through town and we arrived at a fortress of a red brick security wall—there’s four sides to it, it’s square shaped and all four walls are about 100 yards long.
As we drove around the property, we could tell by an occasional view of a rooftop, the structure on the other side was massive. We could barely see the tops of the roof because the red brick wall surrounding it is about 15 feet tall. We continued driving through the town and we were still seeing small children run and duck under houses. We saw a few more groups of people, about six or seven young kids and one adult woman, all holding hands as they walked in the middle of the dirt roads. We saw a storefront straight ahead with a Pepsi sign in the window and it says Pharmacy across the front of the building—we stopped to get something to drink.
The door sounded a bell as we walked in, there isn’t anybody else inside except for us and the two women behind the counter—they won’t look at us. I acknowledged them as soon as we walked in, “hello, good afternoon, how are you?” Silence. “Hi,” I said again, no response, again. We walked through the store whispering to each other how weird that was, toward the back of the pharmacy is a Pepsi fountain machine. We each filled up a cup and went back to the counter. Both women are wearing identical denim-colored dresses, long sleeve white shirts, no make-up and matching hairstyles. We set our drinks on the counter. The register already had a balance on it, they both pointed to it. Still, not a sound from either of them. I handed them money, they handed me my change and, without a single word spoken to us, we proceeded to exit the pharmacy.
Before I walked out, I turned back around “what’s that massive brick wall all about in the middle of town?” Both women spoke to me, they acted like they’ve never seen it, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question.” I said it again “the big, huge, brick wall about 15 feet tall right in the middle of town, it’s all red brick, who’s house is that?” At the same time they said “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question.” My buddy Josh.one “c’mon man let’s get outta here,” I waved to both women “thank you! Have a nice day, thanks a lot for having us!” Suddenly, they talked to us and they were friendly! “Are you just passing through?” “Yes ma’am.” “Where are you guys coming from?” We told them we were headed home and that we’d been on vacation at Lake Powell but that was it, they didn’t say another word to us—silence. Josh.one nudged my arm, “let’s get out of here man.”
We got back in the car with our 32 oz. Pepsi’s and continued cruising around, touring the town. All of the roads were dirt and there’s quite a few four-way stop signs. Every house looked the same, they’re all sheeted in plywood only with no paint or roofs and the front doors all have the same custom designed plaque: FLDS. I don’t remember seeing anymore kids running to hide under houses.
We didn’t get to drive around much longer. I remember we had Too $hort playing really loud at this point and the windows are down. As I came to another four-way stop sign, an older GMC pickup truck appeared in my rear view mirror—the only other vehicle we’ve seen since we got here. I rolled through the stop sign and the truck sped up to catch us, now they’re flashing their lights at us, the cab of the truck has at least three men inside, maybe more and they’re pointing to the side of the dirt road insisting we pull over. We continued driving just a little farther and they continued flashing their lights at us and pointing. It was in the middle of the day and I didn’t feel threatened, I wanted to know what they had to say—I pulled over. They pulled in behind us, I turned down the music as we stepped out of the car. Out steps four adult men, each wearing overalls with no shirts underneath, work boots on their feet, and they have rifles spanning the back window of their truck. All four them exited that truck with a purpose, I could tell these guys are focused.
“You looking to go north or south on the 59? Follow us, we’ll take you back to the entrance” one of them said. “I didn’t know we were..” I was immediately interrupted by the same guy who repeated himself, “you looking to go north or south on the 59? Follow us, we’ll take you back to the entrance!” He raised his voice that time. One of the passengers walked back to the truck and stayed there, I watched him but I couldn’t tell what he was doing. That same man got right up in my face this time, inches from me. He was substantially taller than me and at least 30 years older “you looking to go north or south on the 59? Follow us, we’ll take you back to the entrance!” It wasn’t a good situation, we’re surrounded by three of them and the fourth guy is back at the truck where the rifles are, “south,” I told him. They turned around and all four of them got back inside the truck, they waited for us to get in the car. As soon as we did they pulled up alongside the driver door but wouldn’t look at us. They took off—we followed.
They led us back to the same single lane patch of pavement perpendicular to US Highway 59. They stopped at the entrance and stayed there waiting for us to exit. We drove around them, entered the southbound 59 and left Colorado City.
We barely made it another 30 miles down the road to Hurricane, Utah, and had a flat tire, we pulled into a service station to get the tire fixed. They pulled two nails out of the passenger side rear tire. While they were fixing it we told them about the tour we just did through Colorado City and how a truck full of men escorted us out of town with rifles in their back window. The tire repair shop had several employees in there at the time, they all thought we were nuts, they began telling us isolated stories about Colorado City like exiled children and some other alarming events. They thought we were out of our minds touring through there. They even told us one about how they wouldn’t be surprised if those nails were placed under my tire intentionally when we went inside that pharmacy and the thing didn’t go flat. It made us think about the two women who wouldn’t say a word to us, suddenly they were talkative, and then back to silence.
Colorado City is still home to Warren Jeffs’ followers or, “apostates,” as Jeffs refers to them which he continues to control today from inside the walls of a Texas prison but his flock has since dwindled. A man who roughly seven years ago was believed to have a following of more than ten thousand paritioners has since declined to just a handful of people. Earlier this year, a local bar opened inside the town limits, followed by a vape shop and the upcoming election has zero FLDS members running for office. I found this article explaining all of that, it’s interesting, it names former FLDS members who are either currently appointed city council members or they’re on the next ballot, each of whom resent their old leader. They’ve began paving the roads, too, store owners and entrepreneurs are buying commercial property nowadays in Colorado City, Arizona, USA—a different place from what it was in the 90’s when Jeffs was free to impose his will.
