Report: Missouri Ozarks is home to polygamists living peacefully at ‘The Ranch’
There is no shortage of interesting tales in the Missouri Ozarks, including one about a community of polygamists working, eating pizza and generally doing their thing peacefully on a 600-acre “Ranch.”
A report by The Salt Lake Tribune in collaboration with The Guardian on Monday shines a light on some members of this community, not all of whom are Mormons.
Some call themselves the Apostolic United Brethren. Some associate with the Nielsen-Naylor Group or other sects. What they have in common is a belief in plural marriage, as in one husband and multiple wives.
“The Ranch,” as it’s called by its residents, was established 35 years ago in Cedar County, between Stockton and Humansville, according to the Tribune/Guardian story. Stephen Laub was living in southwest Utah when he heard a voice and was called up a mountain.
“The Lord told me he wants me to go to Missouri and buy a farm,” Laub wrote in his journal. Upon further clarification, God told him to go about 100 miles south of Independence.
Missouri famously has connections to Mormonism going way back. In 1831, church founder Joseph Smith had a prophecy that Jesus would return to Earth in Jackson County. But violence with other settlers in the 1830s caused most of the Latter-day Saints to flee Missouri. The Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remains in Independence.
Though the Mormon church practiced polygamy for more than half of the 19th century, the church officially banned the practice in 1890.
The Tribune/Guardian story introduces readers to Flint Laub and his two wives, half-sisters Michelle Laub and Ruth Anne Laub. Altogether they have 10 children, who were eating pizza while speaking openly about their beliefs and their lifestyle. The story doesn’t clarify the relation between Flint and Stephen Laub.
Bigamy is a misdemeanor in Missouri, punishable by up to a year in jail. But polygamists at the Ranch of about 400 people seem unperturbed.
As Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither told Nate Carlisle, “polygamy reporter” at The Salt Lake Tribune:
“Let’s put it this way, if I had three parties who were consenting adults, I wouldn’t have a complaining witness. If I had a complaining witness, we would take a look.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2019 at 2:59 PM.
%20Cropped.jpg)