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Texas Hill Country Gifts Wildflowers Texan Hunting Fishing Firearms Real Estate
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The construction of the FLDS chruch’s first-ever temple (left edge of photo) means that Prophet Warren Jeffs dream of establishing a New Zion in Texas has moved a step closer to reality. This aerial photo shows most of the buildings at the YFZ Ranch but does not include the rock quarry or the site where the group plans to build a sewer plant.
Less than a year after Eldoradoans first learned that a fundamentalist Mormon sect had purchased a ranch four miles north of town and had begun to build, a new town is springing to life on the property.
In the days before he became the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Warren Jeffs wrote and recorded a song titled, Yearn for Zion. Many of his former followers, including Richard Holm of St. George, UT, believes the song title was the inspiration for the name given to YFZ Land, LLC, the corporation formed by one of Jeffs’ most ardent supporters, David Allred of Hildale, UT.
YFZ Land, LLC appears to have been created specifically to acquire 1,691 acres of land here in Schleicher County, and to mislead local residents as long as possible about Jeffs’ real plans for the property.
The smokescreen worked, at least for a little while. Eldoradoans were told that the property would be a corporate hunting retreat and the ruse was effective until three large buildings went up on the ranch, catching the eye of local pilots.
The Eldorado Success broke the news on March 25, 2004 that Jeffs and the FLDS church, which openly promotes polygamy, had bought the land and were putting large buildings. Forty-eight weeks of intense media scrutiny has followed with virtually every major news outlet picking up on the story.
Many area residents are becoming accustomed to the attention, as TV crews seek interviews in local restaurants and newspaper reporters look for the man-on-the-street angle.
In the last week alone, the town played host to a news crew from KSL-TV, the NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, a documentary film crew from CMT (Country Music Television) and a reporter from the Houston Chronicle. Telephone inquiries from numerous newspapers, radio and TV stations continue to stream in.
In the months that followed discovery of Warren Jeffs’ compound, the first three log cabins have been joined by eight other homes, the largest of which encloses more than 29,000 square feet of living area. An equally impressive meeting hall has gone up. So has a commissary or storehouse and several metal shop buildings.
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Essential city services — While building continues at a hectic pace on the YFZ Ranch, leaders of the new community are putting infrastructure into place to support a growing town. A new shipment of propane tanks indicates several more buildings will soon be going up, confirming word the Success received recently that more log homes are being shipped from Canada to Eldorado. A garbage truck (above) and a fire truck (below) have also been moved to the ranch and an ambulance is reportedly on the way. Tuesday afternoon the Success received word that a shipment of logs was seen entering the YFZ gate on County Road 300. |
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Almost everything about Warren Jeffs’ new town came as a surprise to serious FLDS observers in Utah and Arizona. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was its location.
Like all the FLDS prophets before him, Jeffs routinely taught his followers that the church would some day relocate to Jackson County, Missouri, the place where Mormon founder Joseph Smith tried and failed to establish Zion in the 1830’s.
Facing an extermination order from Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, and following several bloody attacks by the Missouri Militia in 1839, Joseph Smith led his followers out of the state and took them to Nauvoo, Illinois. Developments there eventually led to Smith’s 1844 assassination in nearby Carthage, Illinois.
Since that day, many Mormon faithful, including several fundamentalist sects like the FLDS, have believed that the church would someday return to Missouri where Smith’s Zion would be rebuilt.
As recently as the annual FLDS conference, held April 6, 2002, in Colorado City, AZ, Warren Jeffs spoke on behalf of his ailing father, Rulon Jeffs, and told the church faithful that Zion was to be reestablished in Missouri. His plans apparently changed shortly after the death of his father five months later. By November of 2003 the YFZ Land corporation had been formed and property was being acquired here in Schleicher County.
Recently the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has been asked to grant the YFZ a permit to build a sewer plant on the land. Also, a fire truck and garbage truck have been placed on the property. The group has even secured the services of a doctor, Lloyd Barlow, M.D., who once operated a clinic in Hildale, UT, but who recently received a license to practice medicine in Texas.
By the end of the 2004, all but the most skeptical had reached the conclusion that Warren Jeffs was building his Zion in Schleicher County. Then on New Year’s Day came the news that a dedication ceremony had been held for the group’s new temple. A mere six weeks later the towering structure dominates the landscape at the YFZ Ranch and news about the temple is fueling a new round of media interest. Reporters and investigators from across the country are following Warren Jeffs’ trail to Texas. It remains to be seen if his legal problems will do the same.
In the meantime there’s the question of a new name. There is already a Texas community named New Zion, located seven miles southwest of Jefferson in East Texas. Likewise the name Mt. Zion is taken by a community near Sulphur Springs, northeast of Dallas.
No matter what name the reclusive prophet chooses for his new town, it should be clear to everyone that the Zion Warren Jeffs once only yearned for has become a reality.
The Eldorado Success invites Warren Jeffs and/or other leaders of the FLDS church to comment on this or any other story surrounding the FLDS and the YFZ Ranch.