Constructing Curiosity Religious sect outside Eldorado causing unrest in the community

By Matt Phinney San Angelo Standard-Times

ELDORADO — Chip Cole said his ranch just isn’t the same. His father bought the Schleicher County land in 1961, and it’s always been a place of peace and quiet for the family — a spot where he could go to admire the moon and stars on a cloudless West Texas night. Then, a little more than a year ago, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints moved in next door. Their place has been a constant construction site ever since, Cole said. The night sky is now illuminated not by stars but by construction lights, and the soft, gentle chirping of crickets has been replaced by the steady rumble of heavy equipment. Even the horizon, once nothing but a vista of treetops, is blotted by a four-story white building that many say is a temple for the religious sect. Cole’s three sections of land border the 1,691-acre religious retreat on the east and south sides. Cole, owner of Chip Cole Ranch Sales, a ranch broker in San Angelo, guesses his land lost 30 percent of its value the day news of the group hit the newspapers. "I’m a lucky guy," he joked. "I thought they were just my new neighbors, and I was as friendly as I could be. They keep pretty much to themselves, and aren’t very friendly." A year ago, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a group that essentially no one knew anything about, moved in, bringing plenty of people — and plenty of rumors. Today, while buildings are taking shape on the land, the group is not in any clearer focus for the residents of the area. Some unproven accusations of abuse have come to light, and a dispute is brewing between the group and several government entities regarding a wastewater treatment plant. By and large, the church and its members have kept to themselves. Despite its neighbors’ misgivings, the FLDS has a right, as the local sheriff has repeatedly asserted, to be in Schleicher County and grow. Even so, the group remains the talk of the town in Eldorado. The YFZ Land Co. bought the land, saying the ranch would be used for a corporate hunting retreat. Many believe the acronym stands for Yearning For Zion. The tract of land is about four miles northeast of the intersection of U.S. Highway 277 and Rudd Road, north of Eldorado. Not long after, officials from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a religious group that practices polygamy, admitted the land would be used as a church retreat. The group is not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon church. The small ranching community of Eldorado has since experienced a strange saga of fear, distrust and paranoia. In a place where neighbors are known to help neighbors, no one knows what to make of the group that has been so quiet. It’s unclear how many people are at the ranch or why they are relocating to Eldorado, a town of 1,950 people 44 miles south of San Angelo. The group has resided in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Sheriff David Doran said he has asked the group several times to talk to local media, but group members consistently refuse. Amid stories that child abuse and multiple wives are common within the group, the people who live in Eldorado are coping as best they can, said the Rev. Andy Anderson, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Eldorado. "I don’t think people are afraid any longer," Anderson said. "The main feeling people have is they really don’t want them here. There is just not a lot we can do about it right now." cc Probably no one in Eldorado has heard more stories about the religious group than Randy Mankin, owner of the town’s newspaper, the Eldorado Success. Mankin said he gets e-mails almost daily from sources and contacts in Utah and Arizona with news about the group. Other times, he fields anonymous tips and hears gossip. It’s his job to check the facts and disseminate information to the people of Eldorado. "The rumor mill in a small town is unlike any other," he said. "The coffee shop talk takes on a life of its own." The paper’s Web site, which features a collection of stories about the group and photos of the ranch, has gotten about 60,000 hits and about 2,000 unique visitors a day since the group moved in. Over the course of the last year, Mankin said, one thing has become obvious — there’s usually a kernel of truth in each report. Like the time he heard a mother and her three daughters had escaped the group and were trudging across a hot Schleicher County pasture. Sheriff Doran flew over the area in a small plane and never found the group. The woman left the group when it was en route to Texas, Mankin said. Another rumor was a church leader had died on the ranch. He died, but not in Texas, Mankin said. The rumor of a mass church movement to register to vote turned out to be false, and fears the group would be a welfare burden have not proven true, Mankin said. The most outlandish rumor Mankin helped verify was that a suspected polygamist group was coming to town. Mankin was following up on reports that something odd was happening at the ranch when Flora Jessop, an anti-polygamy activist, contacted Mankin and said the land was being used by the sect. Jessop said she had been abused by church members and escaped when she was 16. "One of the hardest things is separating truth out of all the mass of e-mails we get with speculation, rumor and innuendo," Mankin said. "... I don’t foresee them as being violent, and I don’t buy into the doomsday things. I do think they will come in in such numbers, they will change the makeup of the county." He described the people on the ranch as hard workers who follow a "pretty reclusive leader." The leader, Warren Jeffs, is reported to have more than 50 wives. Jeffs has been sued in Utah by his nephew, who charges that his uncle molested him when he was 13 — accusations that worry the town. A Utah court also has ruled the church was in default because it failed to defend itself in a lawsuit filed by a former member. Some observers believe legal trouble in Utah will drive Jeffs to Eldorado. Others say he has already been there. "The pressure is on Warren Jeffs and his group," Doran said. "That’s why he is migrating this way. They are also purchasing land in Colorado, and we don’t know where else they have gone. What we see happening is if Warren Jeffs makes a move here, he’ll allow his most loyal followers to build residences on his property." Environmental worries A mass migration is one thing that worries Cole most. Milligan Draw, a tributary to the headwaters of the South Concho River, meanders through his property. It’s also the draw that the YFZ Land Co. wants to use to dump its treated wastewater. The effluent water, pushed by a heavy rain, could flow within 200 feet of Cole’s ranch house, he said. He’s worried the effluent could soak into the underground water supply and hurt the water quality. Cole, 53, is also worried a large group of people could pump more water from the ground in a few months than he would for the rest of his life, even though he knows rules of capture gives the church the right to pump as much water as it wants from under its land. "My concern is I had a nice, quiet, peaceful place," he said. "... I observed construction, but thought it was their business. It didn’t affect me until I realized how much water they might use." The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has fined the group more than $18,000 for environmental infractions, and more fines are likely because of the group’s wastewater treatment plant. The permit, which indicated the plant could provide service for 1,000 people, was submitted by YFZ Land in August. The TCEQ has not approved the permit, but the religious group has begun construction on a treatment plant at the site. The commission has issued a cease-and-desist order. The city of San Angelo, Tom Green County and the Upper Colorado River Authority have contributed $7,500 each to pay legal fees to fight the permit. The South Concho River flows north of Eldorado into Twin Buttes Reservoir, one of five reservoirs that form San Angelo’s water supply. "I don’t consider them to be a good neighbor," Cole said. "I’m not unduly concerned. They really want to be left alone, and I’m perfectly willing to leave them alone." Behind the locked gate Jimmy Doyle had just taken off in his small plane and made the wide, slow arc northward when he pointed to a large, white building popping up from the brushy West Texas landscape. The four-story building looks much like a hotel and makes an odd skyline towering above the sea of brushy green treetops. Doyle, Schleicher County’s justice of the peace, has made about 100 flights over the religious retreat, usually taking a reporter or photographer. Doyle steers the plane with one hand, pointing to various locations on the ranch with the other. The huge building, which most observers say is a temple, is surrounded by a dozen or more dormitories. Workers on the ranch have worked night and day on the building, which looks completed other than the rock exterior being installed on the structure, Doyle said. There is plenty of activity on the ranch. Dump trucks and other vehicles drive around on an intricate dirt road system. Doyle points out a concrete plant, a rock crusher, cow barns and the site where the proposed wastewater treatment plant might be built. Two men sit on the building, touching up some roof work. Two women wearing long, blue dresses worked in a large garden on the ranch. If any of the people were bothered or curious about the plane, they didn’t show it. From 3,500 feet in the air, it appeared none of them even looked up. The men wear jeans and long-sleeved flannel shirts, and the women usually wear long blue dresses, Doyle said. "They are pretty self-sufficient out here," said Doyle. "They come to the courthouse to register their pickups or pay their traffic fines if they have any, but they don’t interact much with the community." A year ago Doran stood outside the sheriff’s office on a cloudy March morning last year waiting to speak at a press news conference he did not want to call. For two weeks, Doran and his deputies had worked around the clock to determine just who had moved into the ranch north of Eldorado. YFZ Land had bought the land and told community members the land was to be used as a hunting retreat. That’s not so hard to believe in West Texas, where a 10-point buck is worth more than a sheep or cow. The group’s story soon came into question when Jessop, the former church member, contacted the town and said the land was bought by the religious sect. An Eldorado resident had seen her on a prime-time program and contacted her with concerns the group near town was the same one from which she had run away. Jessop said she learned the man who brokered the land deal was a relative of Jeffs. Doran wanted to prove the accusations were true before holding a news conference, but Jessop wanted the news out immediately. So standing before representatives of dozens of media outlets and about 100 concerned residents, Doran did his best to quell fears of the unknown. He told the gathering that Jessop was a credible source, but that the sheriff’s office had no evidence to prove the accusations. "It did not do the community any favors," Doran said of the news conference. "... To have a major media event, it instilled fear in the town. But she did bring us the information, and the contact was made, and we were thankful for that." Jessop’s information turned out to be correct, and Doran has since spent thousands of hours researching the group, talking with members at the site and keeping the community informed as best he can. He even took a trip to Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., to learn more about the group. There, he found many of the church members were honest and hard-working. The difference is they practice polygamy, Doran said. "For the most part, people (in Eldorado) are better educated on the group than they were a year ago," Doran said. "There are still some concerns in the community about what this group is going to do politically, or what economic pressure they will put on the town. So far, they haven’t demanded anything from the town." Doran said he’ll continue to do what he has done for the last year — be a conduit of information from the group to his constituents. "The mood has calmed down," he said. Townspeople "have accepted the fact that they are here. … For the most part, people are agitated they are growing so much, but they realize they are here, and there isn’t a lot they can do about it."

sanangelostandardtimes.com Originally published March 27, 2005

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