1890 – After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rejects polygamy, some followers defy the church’s edict and continue to practice plural marriage.
1914 – Settlement begins in Short Creek, an Arizona town that becomes a home to polygamists.
1953 – Arizona officials raid Short Creek in an attempt to prosecute polygamy, but the move is criticized.
1961 – Short Creek is renamed Colorado City and grows across the border to include what is now Hildale, Utah.
1986 – Rulon Jeffs becomes the prophet of the fundamentalist sect.
2000 – Jeffs’ son Warren Jeffs orders members to separate themselves from nonbelievers and compels children to stop attending public school.
2002 – Warren Jeffs succeeds his father as church leader.
2003 – David Allred, a member of the sect, purchases 1,691 acres of land in Schleicher County near Eldorado in West Texas.
2005 – A Utah judge appoints Salt Lake City accountant Bruce Wisan as the special fiduciary of the United Effort Plan Trust that controls the church’s holdings in the Colorado City and Hildale area.
2006 – In June, Warren Jeffs is placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. He is arrested in August during a routine traffic stop outside Las Vegas.
2007 – Jeffs is sentenced to two life sentences for the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old to her 19-year-old cousin.
2008 – Authorities enter compound outside of Eldorado.
Source: Star-Telegram archives