Helping bridge a religious divide

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — 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.

Colgrove hatched the idea to rebuild the library, and local nonprofit groups started a community book drive. After a story appeared in the Deseret Morning News, they were flooded with book donations from all over. Paul Murphy, the Utah Attorney General's Safety Net coordinator, filled the back of a pickup truck with boxes of books and drove them to Colgrove's Hildale home.

"I didn't even bring them all," Murphy told her. "There's probably another truck full."

"Can you believe how many people?" she said.

"And there's more wanting to donate."

Colgrove's mother asked the fiduciary for the court-controlled United Effort Plan Trust to give her an old school building built by her father to serve as the library. The UEP Trust controls homes, businesses and property in these border communities. The courts took control in 2005 after allegations surfaced that Jeffs and other top FLDS leaders mismanaged it.

"It's been sitting six years with nothing happening, cobwebs growing," she said as she stood inside the chilly, empty building. "My mother went to Bruce (Wisan) and said, 'I need this building. I want to do something with it."'

Colgrove said Mohave County's library system has agreed to help set the library up, and it will be open to everyone.

"This is a great opportunity to bring the community together," said Jane Irvine, the director of community outreach for the Arizona Attorney General's Office. She helped carry boxes of books into the new library.

It's Colgrove's latest effort to bridge the religious divide between FLDS and ex-FLDS in this community. At times, it seems the divide could better be described as a canyon.

Colgrove grew up Stefanie Williams in Colorado City and was married into a plural family at age 19.

"I just didn't mesh, so I left," she said in a recent interview with the Deseret Morning News.