"Crown Jewel" of polygamy community going up for auction
 
By Brent Hunsaker
ABC 4 News
Western Precision

(Hildale, Utah) Six years ago FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs ordered his followers in the Salt Lake Valley to move out. Salt Lake, he predicted, would be destroyed during the 2002 Olympic Games. The order applied not only to individuals and families, but also businesses – the biggest of which was Western Precision.

Using community resources and labor, Western Precision built a new manufacturing plant and headquarters in Hildale, Utah – then the capital of Jeff's polygamous empire. The 55,000 square foot building has office suites, conference rooms, a showroom, large manufacturing floor and oversized receiving and shipping bays. It even has two apartments reportedly used by visiting clients. (For more detailed information on the building, go to the auctioneer’s website: www.goinggoinggone.bz)

The Western Precision facility is by far the largest and most expensive business in the twin polygamous towns of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. Some have referred to it as their "crown jewel". If it had been built conventionally, the plant would have cost roughly $6,000,000. Similar buildings in Salt Lake or Las Vegas are worth much more than that. But this building is in Hildale. An auction of the property by the United Effort Plan (UEP) Trust is generating little interest. The bids may be only a fraction of the building’s value.

Why? It's not just the location in a remote area along the Utah-Arizona border. It is the community itself. The towns are going through tough times. Once again, Jeffs has ordered several key businesses (including Western Precision) to move. There's tension created by Jeff’s run from the law and now his pending trial. The government in the towns is largely dysfunctional. (Neither has approved town plats. The trust is suing.) What's more, there is general distrust and even occasional hostility towards outsiders. The climate for economic development is far from an ideal.

The auction will take place on the Western Precision property in Hildale at noon on Tuesday, February 27.

brent@abc4.com
 
ABC4.com
Originally broadcast February 26, 2007
 
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