Episode 264: The Raid on Short Creek, Part IV: Hunting Rabbits With an Elephant Gun

Episode 264: The Raid on Short Creek, Part IV: Hunting Rabbits With an Elephant Gun

After all the planning and buildup, at 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, 1953, hundreds of law enforcement officers, social workers, and others converge on Short Creek and took dozens of men and women into custody.

Episode 263: The Raid on Short Creek, Part III: A Good Samaritan Police Action

If it’s true that amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics, then Arizona Governor J. Howard Pyle resolved to be a thorough professional before trying his hand at stamping out polygamy in the community of Short Creek.

Programming Notice 7

In which we blame the migraine from Hades for there being no new episode this week.

Episode 262: The Raid on Short Creek, Part II: The Raids Before the Raid

The polygamy of the fundamentalists living at Short Creek was always going to ensure that they were going to run afoul of the law. In the 1930s and 1940s first the state of Arizona, then the U.S. government decided they simply could not abide these scofflaws any longer. Unfortunately, the way they went about it had very mixed results.

Episode 261: The Raid on Short Creek, Part I: The Principle

To understand the 1953 raid on polygamous families living in Short Creek, we have to go back even further and understand where the community of Short Creek came from, and the theological controversies that led fundamentalist Mormon families to settle there.