EskDale was founded by chiropractor Maurice Glendenning (1891-1969), who heard heavenly music as a boy while picking berries and fishing in Kansas; later a voice dictated cryptic poems to him. Eventually, he stopped transcribing the poems, perceiving them as the work of Satan. Believing that God had placed a curse upon him for disobedience, he wandered from place to place without professional success. Eventually he and his family settled in Provo, Utah, where he resumed recording the poems. Here, in 1929, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, Mormon) and found people in the congregation who were interested in his revelations.  In 1938, Glendenning related a vision in which the Angel Elias anointed him as a priest of Aaron; he later organized his group of followers as the Aaronic Order, for which he and several of his followers were excommunicated from the LDS Church. The Aaronic Order interacted with other religious groups over the next two decades, including Quakers, Hutterites, Christian evangelists, and Pentecostal preachers, all of whom influenced their beliefs. In 1948, Glendenning had a revelation encouraging the community to establish communal settlements in the tradition of the early Christians. After several settlement attempts, the group acquired some land in the desert of western Utah with an underground stream that they named the River Esk after a Scottish waterway. The settlement’s name honors this river. After drilling wells for irrigation and amending the alkaline soil, the community was able to cultivate alfalfa, small grains, vegetables, and fruits. EskDale survived rudimentary conditions for the first few decades, not having electricity or telephone service until the 1970s. The community’s main source of income has always been from raising dairy cattle, although there were several unsuccessful business ventures over the years, including egg production, furniture making, propane delivery, and ceramics. EskDale is run as a for-profit common fund community and includes members who live in the commune and others who join for worship and special events. As of 2000, there were 34 adults and 25 children living as full members. All finances are managed centrally, and the community pays for individuals’ utilities, taxes, insurance, health care, food, and a small monthly allowance. There are also communally-owned vehicles that residents check out if travelling out of EskDale. The community has a daily routine of prayer and hymns marked by bells and celebrates weekly sacrament services and Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. They combine traditions from Judaism such as blowing the shofar, wearing a prayer shawl, and abstaining from pork with traditions from Christianity such as partaking of bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. Some dancing and some music are prohibited. EskDale’s rules and rituals have changed over the years. Meals were once all eaten in silence and all members wore uniforms, but these practices have fallen by the wayside. Women did not play a role in the administration in the early days, but have since gained more positions of authority. Some members have regretted these changes, seeing them as a loss of identity for the community.

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Mainstream members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormons) practiced and accepted polygamy from its introduction to Church practice in the 1840s until the Church prohibited it in 1890 and 1904. This came after years strong anti-polygamy sentiments in the United States and legal persecution of its practitioners. Though facing excommunication after this, some continued the practice and began to coalesce in isolated rural sites, producing their own leaders such as Lorin C. Wooley (1856-1934). He wanted to revive another nineteenth-century practice, the United Order program, intended to emulate the collectivism of the early Christian community by establishing communities based on income equality, group self-sufficiency, and the elimination of poverty. Generally, members contributed their economic property to the community and received a share of the proceeds as income or as housing and food.  Aiming to continue these two traditions, Woolley’s followers established settlements such as Short Creek. Located on the Arizona side of the border with Utah, Short Creek was difficult to reach from Arizona due to the Grand Canyon, an ideal location for remaining out of public scrutiny and for escaping to Utah in case of trouble. Polygamists settled in Short Creek in the 1920s and 1930s, eventually reaching forty families as the Church continued to excommunicate practicing polygamists. Cooperative living was a goal of the inhabitants from the beginning, and in 1936, the community created a trust holding title to land and farm equipment; it also collected clothing and fuel and redistributed these items among the members, who worked the community’s lands. The community entered public awareness in the early 1950s. Following a complaint from a judge in Kingman, the county seat, the Arizona attorney general planned a raid. He commissioned a detective agency to explore the settlement under the guise of Hollywood agents scouting movie locations. For the operation, the attorney general received $50,000 from the Arizona legislature, though they were not alerted to the purpose of the funds. On July 26, 1953, state police entered the community. Residents had been tipped off in advance by sympathetic law enforcement and some managed to escape into Utah; however, most of the community assembled in the small schoolhouse where Arizona national guardsmen took them into custody. Arizona Governor Howard Pyle announced the raid by radio the following day. Public reaction was mixed, with one editorial worrying about the effect on the women and children. Twenty-six men received one-year suspended sentences and were ordered not to further practice polygamy. The state attempted to retain the children, but the Arizona Supreme Court ordered that they be released. The raid remained significant in local memory for decades. Ironically, press coverage of the incident raised awareness of the fundamentalist movement, drawing new members to the community. In the 1960s, a new road improved accessibility from the outside. Locals later incorporated the community as Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The community opened up more to the outside world, establishing hotels and restaurants catering to travelers. However, Short Creek faced new challenges in the early twenty-first century. Its leader, Warren Jeffs (1955- ), was imprisoned for sexual assault against two female minors whom he had married, and the community experienced an epidemic of fumarase deficiency, a debilitating congenital disorder. The community has recently seen several changes, including a new resort, a female mayor, and a public school. 

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