Situation Calm in Eldorado
 
By Jim Forsyth
WOAI News 4 - San Antonio, Texas
 
(ELDORADO TEXAS) -- It's so far so good in tiny Schleicher County Texas, where a combination of a compound being built by a polygamous sect and the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Mormon Church had nervous locals predicting the end of the world.

"They had predictions of everything from a mass movement of people coming in to a temple dedication to mass suicide," Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said this morning.

Doran says members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headed by polygamous 'prophet' Warren Jeffs, 49, has so far broken no laws in its construction of a sprawling compound near the tiny town of Eldorado, south of San Angelo in west Texas.

"We've definitely been monitoring this for the past year they've been here," Doran said.

Doran was allowed to tour the compound yesterday and plans another tour today. The church, which claims between five and ten thousand members, is notoriously secretive, which has prompted many here in this windy prairie town to compare Jeffs to David Koresh, the Branch Davidian leader who killed himself and eighty followers in a massive fire at his compound near Waco in 1993 following a 51 day standoff with federal agents.

"They just keep their heads down," Eldorado resident Gloria Bellman told 1200 WOAI news. "I greet 'em, say hello, good morning, or whatever, have a good day, and nothing is ever said."

There had been rumors floating around El Dorado and in FLDS encampments in Utah and Arizona that April 6th, the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Mormon Church in New York by Joseph Smith would trigger 'the apocalypse.'

"It's kind of put a lot of stress on the community, on the town, but just to calm fears, we wanted to go onto the property to show there's not an issue," Doran said.

But the FLDS, which has nothing to do with the Salt Lake City based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has been a major issue in the small towns of northern Arizona and southern Utah where Jeffs, who is said to have as many as five 'wives,' wields significant power. Former Jeffs follower Richard Holm, who still lives in Colorado City Arizona, which is dominated by the FLDS, has no kind words for Jeffs.

"He's a liar, he's an adulterer, he's a thief. What he's doin' to people, I don't think there's a worse crime that can be done. It's similar to murder," he said.

The FLDS, which has been described by one mainstream Mormon official as "An American Taliban," is reputed to ban television, radio, and the internet for his followers, to require that women defer to men, and Jeffs, who is referred to as 'the prophet,' allegedly 'awards' FLDS women to his close friends as 'rewards' for their loyalty.

One years ago, the FLDS began building an 80 foot tall 'temple' on land Jeffs acquired near El Dorado. He first claimed the property was going to be only a 'hunting ranch,' but later conceded that it will be a temple for the FLDS organization, and will be home to 80 to 150 FLDS members. That raised concerns around Schleicher County, which has a population of about 4500, that the FLDS would plan to 'take over' the county.

Doran said he did not meet with the very reclusive Jeffs during his tour of the still uncompleted 'temple,' but officials in Arizona say Jeffs is believed to be living in Texas.

The FLDS is said to be the largest open polygamy community in the United States. It traces its roots to fundamentalist Mormons who moved to southern Utah and northern Arizona when the mainstream church banned polygamy in 1890 as a condition for Utah statehood.
 
WOAI.com
Originally published April 8, 2005
 
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