Short Creek raid put polygamist enclave on alert in 1953
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Men from Short Creek under guard following a 1953 raid by Arizona authorities of the polygamous enclave. Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images
More than 70 years ago, Arizona took an aggressive step to crack down on polygamy with a mass arrest in Colorado City whose effects are still felt today.
What happened: On Jan. 26, 1953, Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle sent more than 100 law enforcement officers and Arizona National Guard troops into Short Creek, as the then-unincorporated polygamous communities of Colorado City and Hildale were known.
- Pyle labeled the fundamentalist enclave's polygamous lifestyle — specifically its practice of marrying child brides to older men — a rebellion that endangered the "lives and future" of Short Creek's children, whom he said were "the product and the victims of the foulest conspiracy you could imagine."
- 122 adults were arrested, and 263 children were placed into state custody.
Why it matters: The raid drove polygamy in fundamentalist Mormon communities further underground and allowed people like Warren Jeffs to rally followers by using their fear of the government.
- Church leaders "could tell children with a great deal of authority that the state was evil and they were out to get you and destroy your life and family," former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told Axios.
- "It set back efforts to control what was going on in those communities fifty years," Ron Barton, who has investigated polygamy in Colorado City, said in 2003.
The intrigue: Pyle invited dozens of journalists to observe the raid on Short Creek, which he deemed to be in a state of insurrection and rebellion due to its polygamous lifestyle and practice of forced child marriage.
- He added the rebellion endangered the "lives and future" of the community's children, who were "the product and the victims of the foulest conspiracy you could imagine."
- State investigators had been "unable to find a single instance in the past decade of a girl child reaching the age of 15 without having been forced into a shameful mockery of marriage" in Short Creek.
Yes, but: Coverage of the raid, which featured photos of crying children as they were removed from their families, generated widespread sympathy for the families of Short Creek.
- In a front-page commentary two days after the raid, The Arizona Republic editorialized that the men "should have been locked up a long time ago for their licentious misuse of children," but lamented the fate of the women and children, and wrote that the massive law enforcement presence "resembles too closely the hated police-state roundups of the Old World."
Zoom in: Ultimately, the raid resulted in punishments no more serious than probation for the men who were arrested, Time magazine wrote.