[7] A majority of residents and many local officials belong to the most prominent of these sects, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose corporation also owned much of the land within and around the town until state intervention in the 2000s.

The Council of Friends membership desired a remote location where they could practice plural marriage, which had been publicly abandoned by the LDS Church in 1890.

On July 26, 1953, Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle sent troops into the settlement to stop polygamy in what became known as the Short Creek raid.

[9] The two-year legal battle that followed became a public relations disaster that damaged Pyle's political career and set a hands-off tone toward the town in Arizona for the next 50 years.

[10] After the death of Joseph W. Musser, the community split into two groups: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stayed in Short Creek, while the Apostolic United Brethren relocated to Bluffdale, Utah.

Many of these expelled men and boys were very naïve and sheltered and often wound up homeless in nearby towns such as Hurricane and St. George, Utah.

[12] Most of the property in the town was owned by the United Effort Plan, a real estate trust of the FLDS.

The warrants were served on government officials and departments, including the Town Manager, David Darger, as well as Colorado City's fire chief Jacob Barlow.

[16][17] In response to a civil rights lawsuit by the United States Justice Department alleging that the Colorado City government, including law enforcement, was taking orders from the FLDS Church, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne announced in July 2012 that he was allocating funding to allow the Mohave County Sheriff's Department to provide daily patrols in the town.

[20] The Cooke family had moved to the Short Creek area in 2008 but were refused access to utilities by the towns of Colorado City and Hildale.

[22] Colorado City is located in northeastern Mohave County at 36°59′25″N 112°58′33″W / 36.99028°N 112.97583°W / 36.99028; -112.97583 (36.99026, −112.97577) Its northern border is the Arizona–Utah state line, with the town of Hildale, Utah, to the north.

Arizona State Route 389 passes through the center of town, leading east 31 miles (50 km) to Fredonia.

Rainfall is lowest from April to June, but is never particularly high on average, though during strong extratropical low pressure systems, as much as 5 inches (130 mm) may occasionally fall during a month.

The Colorado City/Hildale, Utah area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition which causes severe intellectual disability.