Polygamists move into Texas town
Pastor Dale Morgan
Texas town worries about new neighbors -- polygamists*
POSTED: 1338 GMT (2138 HKT), May 23, 2007
Story Highlights
• Cabinet maker Samuel Fischer moves to small town on Texas panhandle
• Fischer is a follower of polygamist "prophet" Warren Jeffs
• Jeffs' base is in Hilldale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona
• 150 of Jeffs' followers already have moved to Texas as he awaits trial
LOCKNEY, Texas (AP) -- Samuel Fischer would appear to be just what this
withering Texas Panhandle town needs.
A successful cabinet maker with a thriving business in Utah, he hopes to
move the operation here, bringing with it as many as 100 jobs and
perhaps eventually an influx of residents.
Many here, however, say Fischer is no godsend, and the economic boost he
could provide their town of about 2,000 is not worth the cost.
Fischer is a polygamist, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade offshoot of the Mormon Church.
The sect's leader, Warren Jeffs, is awaiting trial on charges he
arranged marriages between men and underage girls.
In Lockney, people like shopkeeper Ginger Mathis worry that Fischer, his
two wives and their 24 children will soon be joined by thousands of
other sect members now living Utah and Arizona. Fischer has closed on
one house in Plainview and has contracts on three others there; he is
also checking out property near Lockney.
"He wouldn't be looking at houses if he didn't have some others coming,"
Mathis said.
Others want to give Fischer the benefit of the doubt.
"I just feel like he's one of God's creatures and if he wants to come to
town, that's his business," said Kay Martin, who owns an insurance
agency in Lockney and is a member of the town's economic development
board. "It doesn't scare me or bother me."
Ranching and farming are the mainstays in the Lockney area, about 75
miles from Amarillo. Farmers produce cotton, wheat, pumpkins and corn.
The town's population has dropped by about 200 from the 2000 census
because there is no other work for young people not interested in
farming or ranching.
Fischer took his case for moving to Lockney to his future neighbors at a
town meeting. He requested the meeting in a letter to the local paper
after it published a column about him and his association with Jeffs.
About 100 people attended. When pressed, Fischer told them that Jeffs
was his spiritual leader but that the FLDS doesn't have a stake in his
business.
About 150 of Jeffs' followers are already in Texas, living outside the
small town of Eldorado, about 230 miles from Lockney. Among the
buildings erected by the sect is an 80-foot-tall, gleaming white temple.
Those who attended the meeting in Lockney say Fischer, 53, promised he
would not build a compound. He also said he didn't know who would be
living in the houses he will soon own.
Fischer declined to be interviewed.
"We dealt with the people that have the need to know," he said. "And
that's all I'm worried and concerned about. Those are the people who
we'll be living and working with. People in New York don't need to know."
Jeffs' group -- based in the adjacent towns of Hildale, Utah, and
Colorado City, Arizona -- numbers about 10,000. It is cloaked in secrecy
and widely known for marrying off teenage brides and banishing men and
boys who disagree with Jeffs. The Mormon Church renounced polygamy in
1890 and has disavowed any connection to the sect.
Fischer's arrival has piqued interest in Lockney, where several
residents said they were reading "Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of
Violent Faith," by Jon Krakauer, a 2003 nonfiction book that mentions
the FLDS.
In his letter to the newspaper, Fischer wrote that he wants residents to
get to know him and to seek jobs at his cabinet factory. He said he
settled on Lockney after getting stranded by an ice storm in January in
Amarillo and seeing an economy that appeared on the "upswing."
Fisher said he is leaving Hildale because Utah authorities took control
of the scandal-plagued trust that controls all the property in the two
neighboring towns.
"There has been plenty of negative publicity regarding my beliefs which
I would hope the honest in heart can see through," Fischer wrote. "I
feel that tolerance for others' way of thinking, that may differ from
our own, is what constitutes a peaceful society."
Some of those who attended the meeting said Fischer was not very
forthcoming.
"He didn't tell us anything," Mathis said. "He evaded some (questions)
and even the ones he answered I didn't feel he was being truthful."
Others said Fisher's cabinet-making business will infuse money into the
area.
"I'm not very much bothered by this," said Mayor Roger Stapp. "They have
every right to be here if they're being good citizens and not breaking
the law."