Land dispute divides Pinesdale community

by Nathan Boddy

The community of Pinesdale, nestled at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains west of Corvallis, is deep into a slow-motion turmoil. The community, which was founded in the early 1960s by a fundamentalist splinter group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church (often referred to as the Mormon Church), has experienced fragmentation over the last decade which has now led two distinct factions to the point of legal action. While multiple factors, some dating back to the 1830s, are at play within the divided community, the primary issue that the divergent parties are seeking to resolve is that of land ownership.

While there are some privately held parcels within Pinesdale, the vast majority of acreage is owned by a Utah-based organization called Unified Industries (UI), the for-profit arm of the Apostolic Unified Brethren (AUB), whose members number into the thousands and inhabit numerous communities throughout Utah, Arizona, and even Mexico. UI/AUB’s ownership of the land in Pinesdale followed the purchase of the land in 1960 by Rulon Allred, who founded the AUB and established Pinesdale as a place where members could practice polygamy without fear of persecution. (The practice of polygamy was officially repudiated by the larger LDS Church in 1890.) Families who moved into the newly established community were given a location to build their homes and become part of the collective while practicing their religion and raising their families. If they were able, each family was also expected to tithe 10% of their net income to AUB and give their time and skills to the benefit of the community.

Years after Pinesdale’s founding, much of the land in question is still legally owned by UI/AUB, but many members of the community claim that Mormon scripture, and specifically the Law of Consecration, requires that UI/AUB eventually transfer the deeds to those who have lived on and developed the land. With internal strife between many community members and UI/AUB, some feel as though the time for UI/AUB to transfer deeds to individual members has now come.

Peggy Lynch, who came to Pinesdale in 1972, says that the families who built their homes in Pinesdale did so with the understanding that the land would eventually become their own legal property.

“We call it a stewardship, but it was treated as an ownership,” she said, adding, “Our houses did not belong to the church. We were responsible for building and improving on their property.” 

The Law of Consecration, which is expressed in Mormon scriptures and dates back to the 1830s, specifies that members of the church offer many of their possessions, energies and skills to the church to be held in ‘common surplus’ for the good of the community. Critical to the argument of the dissenting Pinesdale residents, however, is the claim that the Law also guarantees them stewardship and ownership of their own private properties to be their ‘inheritance’ which would be their legal property regardless of their standing within the church.

“We contributed everything and we came up with the understanding, because of our religion, that if we contributed all that we had that what we built on our piece of property would eventually be ours,” said Lynch. “And it was considered ours by the leadership.” 

The ongoing rift between community members and the AUB leadership began in 2014 after public allegations of child molestation and embezzlement were cast at the leader of Utah-based AUB, Lynn A. Thompson, who died in 2021. Following the allegations, a large portion of Pinesdale residents chose to separate themselves from what they saw as an abusive power structure, but doing so put into question how they would continue to access community services like the Pines Academy school and the town’s bulk goods general store, which are located on UI/AUB land. The conflict between those who wished to remain part of the AUB and those who formed part of a new, ‘2nd Ward,’ soon led to legal proceedings which involved those facilities and eventually the ownership of residential properties as well. According to Lynch, AUB has exerted unfair control over the facilities, stonewalled efforts to resolve the land ownership issue, and even labels those who stands opposed to AUB as ‘apostates.’

As the rift has deepened, scores of community members have begun to claim that the land upon which they have built their homes should be legally deeded to them by AUB, and have sought a summary judgment to that effect in Ravalli County District Court. Part of their case rests upon assertion of ‘adverse possession,’ a legal doctrine which could allow one party to claim ownership of property possessed by another entity. However, proving payment of property taxes is key to the adverse possession argument, and property taxes for Pinesdale residents have long been treated as a special exception within Ravalli County.

Lynch explains that, in the case of Pinesdale, the county has acknowledged a distinction between the land and the structures that stand upon it, allowing residents to directly pay for taxes on the physical improvements on the land while AUB is taxed for the value of the land itself.

“So my house was an improvement on Unified Industries or AUB’s property,” she said. “And so I did own my house according to the welfare and to the county, but I don’t own the dirt.”

Joan Mell, a Hamilton attorney who is representing the begrudged community members in their attempt to secure deeds, asserts that her clients have spent years dedicating themselves to an admirable way of life in which they give to both their community and to God. But, she says that arrangement has meant that decades of tithing and surplus donations have been gladly taken by a largely absent AUB, which in turn has done nothing for the community that the residents have admirably built. Furthermore, she says that AUB’s apparent refusal to provide residents with deeds to the properties upon which they live is tantamount to a “bait and switch,” and that they feel as though AUB has, “betrayed that belief system.”

“The light just went on in 2014,” said Mell. “They just realized that they were bamboozled and swindled. And then they started looking at the money and realizing how much AUB gains. I mean, it’s millions of dollars. Millions.”

The opposing parties sought a summary judgment from Ravalli County District Court in January, a judgment from which both local district judges have recused themselves. Instead, a visiting judge, the Honorable Matthew Wald from Montana’s 22nd Judicial District, heard the oral arguments, but has yet to come to a decision. In the meantime, members like Peggy Lynch continue to feel frustration over AUB’s assertion that she and other community members have turned away from the church.

“Anybody that doesn’t go to their church is [labeled] an ‘apostate,’” she said, adding that the tension has even shown itself within her own family.

Tom Allsop, the UI/AUB representative in Pinesdale, declined to comment to the Bitterroot Star for this story.