Hurricane, Utah

Hurricane, Washington County, Utah, is a short distance from Mt. Carmel as the crow flies, with Zion National Park in between, but in those earliest days it was a difficult journey around the park, south through Kanab, then Fredonia and Pipe Springs Arizona, northwest of the Grand Canyon, and back to toward Utah in what is today the FLDS polygamist settlement of Colorado City (once known as Short Creek) Arizona and Hilldale Utah, spreading across state lines. This polygamist enclave split off from the main LDS church which had formally given up polygamy in 1890. Short Creek was founded as a polygamist town in 1913, distanced from most towns by desert and the Grand Canyon. My Aunt Irene who lived in Hurricane until her death in the Nielson family's early home, would tell me about meeting the polygamists who came to Hurricane to do business and how shy they were and how differently they dressed and behaved from the people who lived in Hurricane. I was always quite curious about this "secret society" that still existed. None of my ancestors had lived in polygamy, though some had been widowed and remarried, making large "blended" families.

(for more information about polygamy see:
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/historyofpolygamy.html

and for the FLDS point of view see:
http://www.arizonan.com/ColoradoCity/)

By 1917, the town of Hurricane where my father's family moved had burgeoned into a town of over 800 families with electricity and water drawn from ditches. I remember driving south on the exit from I-15 to Hurricane on State Highway 17, and how pungeant was the smell of sulfur there. This is where the Virgin River hot springs appear and join with Ash Creek and La Verkin Creek. This is the same Virgin River from the Mt. Carmel region that carved Zion's Canyons through eon's of time. Driving through La Verkin, we would always enjoy Toquerville and the old jailhouse made of stone still along the main road. Toquerville was named after an Indian Chief of the Paiute Indians, Toquer, who was friendly to the Mormon settlers who entered the land of his village around 1857. These were all lovely little communities with great trees, creeks and ditches giving respite from the desert sun.

Lamar tended sheep for a relative as a boy, as did his father for another family after they lost their own sheep with the depression, which took both of them away from their home quite a bit. They had a two-room flat board house, and when it was warm enough the boys slept outside. Later on, Aunt Irene lived in that house, now with added rooms. We visited Aunt Irene a couple of times a year, and she always had a pot of beans, home-made bread and sorghum ready for us. I enjoyed visiting there, and listening to stories of their childhood. They had two pecan trees in the front giving shade, and we were often given pecans or pine nuts from the area to take home.

Aunt Irene was very fond of my father, as he was of her. She told me how thoughtful and kind he was growing up. Once at Christmas, upon returning from herding sheep, he found that there were no presents for the kids. He took the money he had earned as a shepherd and went to town to purchase Christmas gifts. He often sacrificed his hard-earned money for his family.

Home in Hurricane

Hurricane farm