page_title: YFZ Ranch
section_title: Creation of property
hierarchical_section_title: YFZ Ranch / Creation of property
caption_attribution_description: An aerial view, with beam of light from the heavens, of the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas. http://web.sccn2.net/flds/images/
context_page_description: The YFZ Ranch, or Yearning for Zion Ranch, was a 1,700-acre Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community of as many as 700 people, located near Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas, United States. As of April 2014, the State of Texas took physical and legal possession of the property.
context_section_description: Speaking in Sunday church services on August 10, 2003, Warren Jeffs declared that the blessings of the priesthood had been removed from the community of Short Creek (Colorado City and Hildale). Following the sermon, Jeffs suspended all further religious meetings but continued to allow his followers to pay their tithes and offerings to him. He then turned his focus to what he called "lands of refuge": secret communities that he had started to build up. Jeffs referred to Yearning for Zion Ranch, one of the lands of refuge, by the code name R17.
  The YFZ Land LLC, through its president, David S. Allred, purchased the ranch in 2003 for $700,000 and quickly began development on the property. When he purchased the property, he declared that the buildings would be a corporate hunting retreat. Allred stuck with that story even after William Benjamin Johnson, a Hildale man, was alleged to be shooting all the white-tail deer on the ranch and, after an investigation, was fined for hunting without a license.  Later, ranch officials disclosed that the hunting retreat description was inaccurate; the buildings were part of the FLDS Church's residential area.
  The ranch was home to approximately 500 people who relocated from Arizona and Utah communities. It housed a temple, a waste treatment facility, a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 m²) house for FLDS Church president Warren Jeffs, a meeting house, and several large log and concrete homes. There were generators, gardens, a grain silo, and a large stone quarry that was cut for the temple. According to preliminary tax assessments, about $3 million worth of buildings had been built. The sect was  fined over $34,000 for environmental violations in connection with buildings on the ranch, mainly due to its failure to obtain the required permits for its cement-mixing operations.
  The temple foundation was dedicated January 1, 2005, by Jeffs.
caption: Aerial view of the FLDS ranch
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S2 IS", "Image DateTime": "2006:05:17 08:03:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "2048", "Image Tag 0x1002": "1536", "Image ExifOffset": "146", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:05:17 08:03:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:05:17 08:03:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "277/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "107/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "81/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "81920/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "64000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}