Isolated in the Southwest High Desert, Polygamous Sects Can be Found on the Arizona-Utah Border

If you happen to be driving along in Utah or along the Utah-Arizona border you will know you are in a land founded by hard-working Mormons. As I visited Bryce and Zion National Parks we encountered some charming villages down some of the back roads that had, as their centers, a Mormon Church. The Mormons have had a very positive effect on the countryside. The towns are orderly and close-knit.

While these small towns are charming, there is a darker side to aspects of fundamentalist sects that find their roots in the Church of Latter-Day Saints. There are those that have carried things to the extreme. Polygamous sects have founded isolated communities in the Southwest, and have developed a society that defies the laws of both Arizona and Utah and supports polygamous marriage including the marriage of under-age girls and older men. One such community is located in Colorado City, Arizona. Find out more...

Photo: Banking on Heaven