SemiConscious Dot Org

Priest: So how many wives will you be marrying today, Mr. Simpson?
Bart: Just one.
Priest: Pssh. What are you, gay?

It’s always good news when a town opens a new library. So I was pleasantly surprised this morning to discover that Colorado City is rejoining the modern world:

The log building on the corner of Central and Johnson streets has sat empty for years. Now, it’s going to become the new Hildale/Colorado City public library.

“We’re dang excited,” Stefanie Colgrove said Thursday as she carried another heavy box of books into the building. “Thank you to everyone who donated. It’s wonderful. It’s just amazing.”

Thousands of books have been donated to help rebuild the library, which closed years ago and the books disappeared. Some claim Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs had them destroyed.

(link via LISNews)

Those of you who know me personally have probably already heard the tale of the time I visited Colorado City. My former employer had just granted several public access computers to their town library, and I was sent to install the computers and train the library staff. It was an experience as surreal as anything I’ve ever experienced.

I reached the town after a sixty mile drive from the nearest hotel. When I pulled off the empty desert highway and into town, the streets instantly turned to dirt, and every pedestrian I drove past (all of whom seemingly dressed like extras from Little House on the Prairie) turned their heads to follow me until I was out of sight. As I searched in vain for the library, a car appeared from a side street and began to follow me. This continued for several minutes as I became progressively more nervous. Finally, I spied the sign for the public library and turned into the parking lot. The trailing car stopped, obviously making note of my plate number, and then drove off.

Things got stranger when I entered the building, deserted except for the two staff members. The two women – one seemingly in her forties and the other no more than eighteen – seemed surprised to see that their trainer was a man. They quickly made a phone call, and a few minutes later a gentleman in his mid-fifties arrived. He watched me as I unpacked and set up the computers, then remained for the rest of the morning and afternoon as I showed the librarians how to use and administer their new machines. He didn’t say more than ten words the entire time. I found it all a bit odd, but assumed he must be the town’s tech guy, there to learn all he could about how our grant computers were configured.

Later, I found out that the two librarians – whom I had assumed were mother and daughter due to their age difference and identical last names – were actually both married to the older man, and that the reason he was there was because women in their church are not allowed, unchaperoned, in the presence of men to whom they’re not married.

Saudi Arabia? Nope, Utah.

If you’ve heard of Colorado City at all, it’s probably because of the gruesome events retold in Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven or because of the recent flight, capture, trial and conviction of the town’s “prophet,” Warren Jeffs. It’s a bastion of polygamy, incest, and religious lunacy out in the remote desert wilds of the Arizona/Utah border. Its remoteness is intentional, as the inhabitants don’t welcome the scrutiny of outsiders and much of what they practice is flagrantly illegal. The weird, violent history of the place is well documented, both in print and online, resulting in far more attention than many of the inhabitants ever wanted.

My interest is more personal. I know for a fact that there was a library in Colorado City because I was in the damn place. But sometime between the day I visited in 2001 and today, the powers that ruled the town shut it down, as a threat to their power. The article quoted above hints that its books were destroyed, and this article suggests much the same:

“This is a most worthy cause as these women and children have had no access to books (or television or the Internet) for a long time, if ever, and education is the ticket to freedom,” Black said. “I have been (to Colorado City) several times on postal business and found the women to be extremely isolated and curious about the outside world.”

“No access”? We gave them public computers and internet access. What happened to those computers?