Colorado City Opens Up - a Little

COLORADO CITY A People on the Cusp of Time COLORADO CITY

In Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, the Martians survive the arrival of Earth astronauts by scanning their minds to see what they most long for and creating that on Mars' barren surface. Because human memory is imprecise, some details are out of sync.

When I first saw Colorado City, it looked like Martians had created a perfect American dream town in a spectacular setting. Lodged against the base of the Vermilion Cliffs on the northernmost strip of Arizona, the town is all rambling frame houses, huge trees, and small businesses. Views stretch all the way to next month; the protective red cliffs seem to guard the town. Towheaded children bicycle down the dirt road and play beneath a huge cotton-wood tree that presides over a grassy park.

Martian minds, however, would create glitches, too. New cars are parked on the street, but girls are in the long ruffled dresses more familiar when the century was young. Women pausing in the produce aisle of the market have long corkscrew curls; little boys wear buttoned-up shirts and have sober faces. It's as if some of the details of Main Street USA are from 1910.

In reality, Colorado City is on the cusp of time, a place that until recently had remained fiercely private and is now wrestling with the challenges of growing up. Adolescence is awkward, and threatening; it is the time moral decisions are made. In this case, those include how to welcome tourists without threatening the neighborly infrastructure of the town; how to create job opportunities without changing the quality of life. Colorado City is becoming "civilized," and like a great wilderness it will become both less remote and less splendid as it is homogenized.

The element of Colorado City that is most surprising to many is that it is largely a polygamist community. In the early 1870s, Mormon settler William Maxwell homesteaded a ranch in the vicinity of a small meandering stream, soon known as Short Creek. During the next half-century Short Creek remained an isolated collection of ranches until LeRoy Johnson homesteaded there in the late 1920s. Soon a community arose as a sanctuary for breakaway fundamentalists who felt the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was selling out for political reasons by agreeing to prohibit members from taking multiple wives.

Oddly ratioed families of one father, four mothers, and tens of children couldn't comfortably pick up and move to Phoenix or Flagstaff. "Uncle Roy" Johnson, as the patriarch came to be known, offered his homesteaded land as the new Zion to believers of the old ways. They still call themselves members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In the 1950s, the town then known as Short Creek was raided by order of Governor Howard Pyle, who felt polygamy threatened the well-being of the children. Department of Public Safety officers were brought from around the state to arrest those men in the community who had more than one wife.

A journal of resident Emma Jessop describes the predawn hours while the women waited together: "It was said there were over 100 officers with guns, machines, and tear gas, and they were going to have every person out of Short Creek in three days and destroy all our buildings."

Instead, children were sent to foster homes around the state. Most of the men pleaded

TO DESCRIBE COLORADO CITY AS 'polygamist' WOULD BE THE SAME AS DESCRIBING Abraham Lincoln ONLY AS A MAN WHO WORE A BIG HAT.

As outsiders, we were reluctantly given directions; mothers herded their children in from the yards as we passed. One dissident member of the fundamentalist church told me children of the community were taught not to talk to strangers.

Colorado City was insulated from outside influences. There were few satellite dishes for television, few tourists who dressed differently, few chances to encounter a belief system other than the United Effort Plan offered. The UEP is a land-holding trust of the church leadership. It bestows land on new families at no cost so young men starting out can build homes and get a good start in life. A drawback is that discontented members have a hard time leaving because they don't own anything they can sell.

During the past eight years, Colorado City has endured some mighty growing pains. The community has gotten more accustomed to strangers, media, and curious visitors. On my first visit, mothers hustled their children away when we appeared with a camera. Today, with a hotel and restaurant, Colorado City has decided to live with the outside world instead of fearing it. It seems like a town sure enough of the good in its life-style to be able to withstand alternatives displayed by passersby.

Colorado City is a twin city with Hildale, Utah; they share a post office, divide utilities, and function on Utah time. Unlike Utah, Arizona doggedly resists converting to Daylight Savings Time during summer. Since Colorado City is separated from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon and is a footstep away from Utah, its schools, stores, and schedules stay on Utah time year-round.

To describe Colorado City as "polygamist" would be the same as describing Abraham Lincoln only as a man who wore a big hat; that's only one part of so much more. By the time I left Colorado City, I forgot the families were structured differently than my own.

Mayor Dan Barlow grew up in Colorado City. The school superintendent, police chief, town clerk, and building official are all Barlows; Barlow University is under construction. A genial man with a mild demeanor that coexists with dark piercing eyes, Mayor Barlow puts on his hat and of-fers his car for a tour of the town.

guilty to misdemeanor charges and were given probation with the caveat that they would not practice polygamy. ("We didn't practice," one said dryly. "We knew what we were doing.") It was two years before the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom of religion, including polgamy. After that, renamed Colorado City kept as far out of the way of the rest of the state as possible.

The first time I went there, in 1985, there were no hotels and just one restaurant, which was open only a few hours each day.

THIS IS A PLACE FOR children, AND THE COMMUNITY IS CELEBRATING ITS heritage RATHER THAN TRYING TO OBLITERATE IT.

Colorado City is a raw unfinished place full of potential and machinery; half the houses are in some phase of construction or addition; farm equipment is standard in the dirt lots next to them. Gardens are as common as windows. Businesses are springing up; since I've been here last the Vermilion Fine Candy Shoppe, Red Hills Service Station, Mark Twain Restaurant, and Copper Cliffs Motel have hung out shingles. Two parks have been developed. The red brick university is adding buildings next to the L.S. Johnson Meeting House, the church hall named for the town's founder. Even a radio station, KCCA, is broadcasting from a tiny building on a hillside. A fire-log manufacturing plant employs about 60 people and pumps millions of dollars into the local economy. The airport, which was a dirt landing strip when I was here before, was proclaimed Arizona Airport of the Year in 1992.

Barlow is understandably proud of these changes, but his real pride is in the people, his friends and fellow church members.

We drive to Cottonwood Park, a sylvan circle of green with what must be among the largest cottonwood trees in the state. The clearing, planting, and furnishing are all volunteer contributions. Although they are not here now, I can easily envision the families working on Saturdays, directing children with small shovels, heaving bundles of weeds and underbrush into pickups to make room for picnic tables. A 50-foot-long slide and miniature railroad circling the park are products of parents working so their children have a wonderful place to play. Likewise, Pioneer Heritage Park is the result of neighbors pitching in. The original Short Creek School now stands freshly painted and surrounded by groomed landscaping. Barlow may be prouder of other sites, but he seems fondest of this one. He looks at the wooden steps as if he can still see himself as a proud first-grader walking to school. This also is the place, he tells us, where he was brought as a young father when the raid took place.

"My youngest was 10 days old," he says. "We waited all night and heard the officers were coming. They rounded us up here at the schoolhouse."

So this site is a melding of Colorado City's culture, and hard times are part of any growing up. Barlow seems to bear no rancor for those early difficulties. State funding and federal grants are partners in Colorado City's growth. So he looks contented, watching five youngsters in jeans eating popsicles as they sprawl in the lush green grass by the school-house. This is a place for children, and the community is celebrating its heritage rather than trying to obliterate it.

We go to the Mark Twain Restaurant, which is possibly the most incredible place in town. It looks like a showboat in which every possible luxury has been incorporated with no thought of restraint: marble mantles, carved booths, red brocade, chandeliers, floral arrangements, and rich dark wood crowd the interior like a woman decked out in jewels, furs, feathers, and velvet.

We're surprised to see the menu offers margaritas (non-alcoholic, we're told when we inquire). They are served, as are onion-and-cheese sandwiches (a local favorite, I suppose) by demure young women in longish skirts and prim dressy blouses. Whether braided or ringleted, every head of hair is glossy perfection. The hostess, who is probably a grandmother, has impeccable corkscrew curls. Oddly, the piped-in music is a genteel rendition of "My Love Does It Good." I wonder how many diners have ever heard the original recording.

A group of teenagers is circled in a booth, elbows on the table. The talk sounds merry.

voices and tender skin. A patina of health and wholesomeness surrounds them. There is none of the weary blase suspicion I see in young groups dressed in black, slouching through malls.

As in any city, young people aren't clones; some don't fit comfortably into the mold. Of Don, Katie, and Earlene Cox's 19 children, some are happily contributing to Colorado City's community life, some have moved; sev-eral say they would never consider polygamy because it's too complicated. But the vari-ances don't seem to cause familial stress.

Since I visited nine years ago, shy teen-agers have become confident parents; gam-boling youngsters have driver's licenses. Somehow Don, Katie, and Earlene seem un-changed. Don, a powerful man with huge hands, welcomes us and entertains my fa-ther with wry commentary on life in Colo-rado City. Earlene brings cold drinks. We ask what the jumbly mountain north of the house is called, and Don says straight-faced it's Cox Rocks. While he often is not in agreement with local government, he wears it lightly. Tension that threatened to cause se-rious trouble a few years ago seems to have become live-and-let-live differences.

That's partly because Colorado City has more shades than the sepia and white of the old photograph it used to be. From the satellite dishes saucered in side yards, it's clear residents see other options to the way of life they've been brought up to follow. But the close-knit support system fits most of them like a wool sweater, warm and familiar. Even though they see minibuses full of children in shorts, boys with startling haircuts, and young girls glamorously made up at the hotel or restaurant, their way works for them.

(ABOVE) New businesses in town provide needed employment. Susie Dutson, left, Sylvia Dutson, and Ada Drapper work at the Vermilion Fine Candy Shoppe, where freshly baked wheat bread is a specialty. (RIGHT) A young girl picks carrots in the community garden, reveling in one of the bucolic pastimes of her hometown. Some youngsters here grow up and are drawn to the outside world. But others are content to stay, even though some say they will avoid the complications of polygamy.

COLORADO CITY

In the Colorado City General Plan, drafted in 1993, a visitors center is mentioned as one of the goals. It's purpose will be to "orient people to the etiquette of visiting, what is suitable subject matter for photography, or what parts of the community are open to visitation." Hopis on Second Mesa could tell them it isn't always easy to have tourists "partly visit" - people who come want to wander freely. Townsfolk want visitors to see the archaeological wonders of the Corn Growers site, but it's hard to ask them to stay out of neighborhoods. Our last stop is Maxwell Park, up a winding red-cliffed road. Tucked away in a box canyon is a profusion of greenery with rockLike many other structures in Colorado City, this house is still taking shape. This is the kind of town, residents say, where everyone pitches in to spruce up a park or put a new coat of paint on the school. backdrops that make the tall trees and expanse of grass look like Paradise. If tourists are disappointed at not getting to see something considered off-limits, this is a fine consolation prize. My daughter lurches tipsily across the lawn making baby-shoe prints, laughing with the sheer pleasure of the newly mobile. Mayor Barlow smiles. Religion is important here, but so are children and laughter. What one might separate, the other joins.

WHEN YOU GO

To reach Colorado City from Phoenix, drive north to Flagstaff on Interstate 17, then continue north on U.S. Route 89 leading to Page. Where the road splits to Marble Canyon or Page, take U.S. 89A over the Navajo Bridge and continue west on 89A past Jacob Lake to State Route 389. You'll go through Fredonia to reach Colorado City. You can stay at the Copper Cliffs Motel, 40 feet north of the Arizona border, (801) 874-1125. The Mark Twain Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the Vermilion Fine Candy Shoppe serves sandwiches. Points of interest on the drive include a detour from JacobLake to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (closed during the winter season). Pipe Spring National Monument is a fort built by early Mormon settlers over a spring between Fredonia and Colorado City on State 389. The breathtaking Vermilion Cliffs run from Marble Canyon at the Colorado River all the way to Colorado City. Weather is mild most of the year. Services are limited with gas stations and restaurants few and far between; pay phones along the way can be stubborn. Make sure you have cash and credit cards, and top off your tank when you can. Carry snacks and water.

Travel Guide: Fascinating facts and stories about the landmarks, communities, and plants along 15 of the Grand Canyon State's most traveled highways are keyed to roadside mileposts and exit signs in the Arizona Mileposts Travel Guide ($15.95 plus shipping and handling). Color photographs and detailed maps accompany the quick-read text that's sure to make any road trip zip by. To order, call toll-free 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

Lisa Schnebly Heidinger is an Arizona native who became so captivated with Mormon history in the state she wants to do a book about the Arizona Strip. Fred Griffin especially enjoys photographing the diverse and fascinating small towns of Arizona.