'Polygamist colony' is focus of new tour

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COLORADO CITY, Ariz., Sept. 19 (UPI) -- America's " largest and most -secluded polygamist colony" will be showcased in a new four-hour tour, organizers say.

The tour will offer accounts from guides who had lived in "The Creek," the historic name for the community on the Utah-Arizona border that is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The tour's promotional literature promises answers to questions from the curious: "Why the prairie dresses and long braids? No makeup? More than one wife? All questions to be answered during 'The Polygamy Experience.'"

Richard Holm, who was exiled from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2003, and his brother, Heber Holm, who left the community 35 years ago, will lead the tours. The first tour is set for Saturday.

Richard Holm promised the tour would be respectful.

The community encompasses parts of in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and passengers will ride aboard a bus between sites. Guides will explain the origins of fundamentalist Mormonism and the abandonment of polygamy by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They will also talk about historical and current events in the community.

Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, hopes people can find better things to do than tour The Creek.

"They want to come into the community like it's a spectacle," he said of the tour's organizers, "when for us, it's like the circus is coming to town. We hope people have more of a life than to be suckered into that sort of scam."