COLORADO CITY - This is a place for long-sleeved shirts, houses under construction and walls closing in.
The long-sleeved shirts are what the residents wear, buttoned down to the wrist, to hide the undergarments demanded by their religion.
The houses are under construction because every family is growing bigger with more wives and more children.
And the walls are closing in because Utah authorities are taking their second hard look in two years at the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation, which occupies Colorado City, Ariz., and neighboring Hildale, Utah. Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano has indicated the hard look is the first step in an investigation of child abuse, sexual misconduct and welfare fraud along the state line.
The first result of that hard look: Rodney Holm, 36, a deputy marshal for the two towns, and his first wife, Suzie Stubbs, are being arraigned today on charges ranging from sexual misconduct to bigamy. At issue is Holm's marriage to Stubbs' younger sister, who was 16 when the church marriage took place, and two children she bore him before turning 18.
Court records say Ruth Stubbs had asked to marry her boyfriend, also a fundamentalist church member, but church leaders decided she should wed her brother-in-law. Suzie is accused of pressuring her sister to go through with the wedding and is the first woman in more than 100 years to be charged with bigamy.
Another result of the inquiry: The sectarians who live at the foot of the Caanan Cliffs are feeling persecuted. And their memory of persecution is long.
"All this is just like the 1880s, when the federal government came against the Mormon religion," said Dan Barlow, Colorado City's mayor and a member of the church. "They're coming after us again, and they're even using the same language."
Colorado City and Hildale have always been out-of-the-way places along the arid Arizona-Utah line northwest of the Grand Canyon. The polygamists broke away from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after church leaders renounced polygamy in the early part of the 20th century as a prerequisite for being admitted to the Union. Many traveled to the area, formerly known as Short Creek, to avoid being bothered. It hasn't worked.
The FBI arrested scores of men in the town during an undercover raid during the 1930s. Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle ended his political career in 1953 by ordering a raid on Short Creek.
Mayor Barlow was a boy when the 1953 raid happened. His brother, Samuel, was 16. They watched their grandfather being taken away in the raid. One month after he was released from prison - charges were dropped against him, as they were against most of the arrested men - he died.
"This is just another shot of religious persecution," said Samuel, also a member of the church. "We should be used to this."
The memory of those raids is never far from the surface. Just walk into Samuel's office across Township Street from where his brother works at Town Hall. Look around, past the documents from the 1935 FBI raid and books like Isn't One Wife Enough?
Look at the yearbooks he has kept. The 11- by 17-inch gray yearbook with the laminated pages he copied from a man in town. It has stories about raids on polygamists going back to the turn of the 20th century.
"I figured those might be of historical interest," he said, a sour grin on his face.
A blip on the screen
The memory of those raids is not far away, but residents say they have no fear of a government crackdown. Some are hopeful Holm and Stubb's arrests are just another blip on the screen.
"We're just hoping it flies on by so we can go on with our lives," said one businesswoman in town.
She wouldn't say more. Residents defer to the mayor, an articulate man who has become Colorado City's unofficial spokesman.
When people do talk, it's always with a little fear in their voice and a request not to be identified.
"One of the people I work with in Salt Lake called me today and said, 'Don't you live in fear down there?' " another businesswoman and member of the church said. "I said, 'No. I could walk down the street and get hit by a bus. But living here, I don't live in fear.' What happens will happen, and there's no use worrying about it, because there's nothing we can do."
Colorado City-Hildale looks like an idyllic place, with dusty streets people don't drive too fast on, one food store and no stoplights. City officials talk with pride about the airport, the new firehouse, the spirit of community.
But another look is more revealing.
All the women in town wear long, flowing dresses with no tailoring at the hips. Sometimes they wear them over jeans and with running shoes. The men wear low-key, button down, long-sleeved work shirts and jeans.
And the houses that line the dusty roads are ramblers. Built for multiple wives and expanding families, many of the homes look like bunkhouses, with row after row of windows. There are homes that have full playgrounds in their back yards.
Many of those homes are unfinished. Few in Colorado City own the land their house is on. The church owns all of the land. Without property, no family can get a loan. And so houses are built by their owners, giving both Colorado City and Hildale the look of places that have been frozen in time, even as they move forward in it.
'We've had our fill'
It has been a difficult past few months for the faithful.
The heads of six prominent families have died, four of them church leaders killed in a plane crash. The leader of the church, Elder Rulon Jeffs, died without a clear successor. And now a sworn police officer will have to stand trial to answer for actions he feels are legal and religiously justified.
"We've had our fill, that's for sure," said Barlow, the mayor. "The people here are humbled by it, but moving forward. Trying to move forward."
Life goes on at the same pace it always has. The cities have been in the news for a long time. The big gray scrapbook in Sam Barlow's office is proof.
"You can say this is a peaceful little town where people are going about their business," said Don Timpson, who isn't a member of the church but who grew up in Colorado City and teaches at Mohave Community College's campus there. "And you can say this is all more water off a duck's back.
"But that's not to say I don't think something dramatic has just happened here, and the results will be . . . who knows?"