I originally posted back in 2015 about a trip I took out to the Warren Jeffs Compound near El Dorado, Texas.
A Trip To West Texas
As most of you know there isn’t much to see when traveling through much of west Texas.
A couple of days ago I went along with my brother to look at a quarry and the remnants of a rock crushing operation about 50 miles south of San Angelo.
As soon as he told me where he was headed, I knew I had to go. I immediately pulled it up on Google Earth to get my bearings. It took me a little while to realize what I was seeing.
The place where we were heading was like a whole town out in the middle of nowhere. Back in 2003 it was just a 1700 acre piece of barren west Texas dirt. Between 2004 and 2009 this place was built, housing for hundreds of people, a full diary operation, stone quarry, rock crusher, ready mix concrete plant, metal works shop, woodshop, poultry operation, a 20 acre fruit tree orchard, 100’s of exotic animals, an amphitheater, offices and a huge Temple.
It has its own electric grid system, water works and wastewater treatment facility.
The project cost something like 35 million dollars to build. One house has something like 168 bedrooms. That’s the main house. Now the whole thing sits almost completely vacant.
I took pictures but was asked to not use them on social media for legal reasons. But for the curious, it can be seen on Google Earth and many articles and pictures can be found. Just do a search for YFZ Ranch (Yearning for Zion), Warren Jeffs or FLDS in Schleicher County Texas.
Yes this is the religious commune that was so much in the news a few years ago. There has been plenty written on this subject so I’ll let you pull it up and read it.
But I can tell you it was one of the most astonishing days I’ve ever spent. The enormity of the place, in such an out of the way place, the cost to operate it, that most likely it will all one day be leveled for lack of being able to sustain itself.
Now there are several government agencies that are spending money just to try to figure out what to do with it and recoup money already spent.
So if you have an extra $20 – $30 million laying around and want a place to take a 1000 of your closest friends, you may want to watch for the sale notices.
Below is a San Antonio Express News article about it, including a potential buyer that had been found.
I’m glad someone has found a use for that place. I scratched my head aplenty trying to figure who would be a good match for owning such a place, given its remote location and the amount of money it would require to maintain it.
Angora Chronicles 
Thanks for the link. I especially learned from the newspaper article. I was not in the USA when all of this “went down”, so heard it through several filters. This was enlightening.
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It was truly a once in a lifetime experience, to go there and walk through all the buildings and have a few things explained to us in person.
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