Like an Alien Landing

Mayberry on Steroids?

by 

Randy Garsee

     Have you ever watched Mayberry, R.F.D. or The Andy Griffith Show? What would the sheriff have done if large buildings started going up on a secluded piece of land just outside of quiet little Mayberry? And then he couldn’t find out why? Would he finally have to put on that gunbelt and give Barney Fife more than one bullet?
     Of course that plot was never part of a Mayberry episode but it has become a very real episode elsewhere, but first I had to travel more than 700 miles to a quiet little town in west Texas.
     Ten years ago, Randy Mankin went into the newspaper business. "I was looking for a way to stay in this town. We like this little town. It's like living in Mayberry."
     The Eldorado Success is a reflection of his Mayberry with its bad news. "Sometimes that means getting out of bed at three in the morning and going out and covering a car wreck."
     And its good news like, "Seeing someone getting a Lions Club recognition. That's just fantastic."
     A few months ago, however, Mankin's Mayberry began to whistle with questions, conspiracies and paranoia. "When this thing came to town, this story, it was so foreign to what everyone had seen it almost did seem like a UFO had landed."
     "Naturally, panic took over the town a little bit," said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran. He discovered the seeds of fear sprouted from a secluded ranch north of town. "Where they're building, it sets right in a valley, so, it's real hard to see anything. There was a heightened awareness within our community. There was a lot of fear of the unknown."
     And the unknown wanted to stay that way. The ranch gate stays locked. The red sign offers no warm welcome. To the side, a surveillance camera watches all those who approach. But the unknown could still be seen, as the sheriff pointed out, “Their biggest problem is aircraft flying over."
     "All of a sudden you see them in Shleicher County and it's like, my goodness what's going on down there,” said Justice of the Peace, Judge James Doyle. He took me on a flight over the ranch in question. The view from above showed a lot of major construction: three-story log cabins and buildings large enough to hold hundreds of people.
     Eventually, authorities contacted the names connected to the deed. At first they told the local officials that it was going to be a hunting lodge. It was a lie. Mankin says the stories kept changing. After the hunting lodge tale, they were told it was going to be a place for a businessman to entertain his Las Vegas clients.
     Mankin said, "First thing we thought was 'Well, the mob's coming to town.' It almost would have been easier to understand, had it been."
     The truth finally came from Arizona. It seems Eldorado's newest residents were Arizona transplants. Not just a few people but a religion, a religion that allows men to have more than one wife. The church, of course, is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or F-L-D-S.
     Thousands of its members live in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah.
"Fundamentalist Mormonism, I guess you'd call it, is not a common thing here in Texas and definitely not in Eldorado, Texas," said Sheriff Doran.
     As it turned out, the ranch would be used by a church accused of forced underage marriages, child abuse and financial misconduct. The church is led by a reclusive prophet who is being sued by his own nephew for sodomy. Understandably, the truth has not eased the minds of the citizens of Eldorado. Now there are new concerns of how many church members are moving here when the compound is finished and what are their plans for the once worry-free west Texas town?
     "As far as them taking over the community,” the sheriff said, “There are big concerns of that amongst the citizens."
     For now, newspaper editor Randy Mankin has the story of his career in a town he once compared to Mayberry.
     "Is it still Mayberry?" I asked.
     "It's Mayberry on steroids," Mankin said and laughed.