[7] On September 19, 1941, the community founded by Elden Kingston officially filed for recognition with the State of Utah as the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc.
[10] The organization owns an extensive portfolio of business and land assets throughout the western United States, including a 300-acre (1.2 km2) dairy farm in Davis County; a 3,200-acre (13 km2) farm in Tetonia, Idaho; a coal mine in Emery County; 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) in Terreton, Idaho; discount and grocery stores; Desert Tech Firearms; and a restaurant supply company.
Some of their secrecy might be attributed to a fear of arrest for living in plural marriages, as had happened in 1959–1960 when being investigated by the Davis County Grand Jury, which some members claimed was organized by LDS Apostles Mark E. Peterson and Spencer W.
[15] That same year, Ardous Kingston Gustafson, a mother of four and founding Co-op member, was jailed on Christmas Eve when she could not produce membership lists used to further the court's investigation into charges of cohabitation.
[19] Long-time leader John Ortell Kingston lived in a small one-story clapboard house in Salt Lake City up until the time of his death in 1987.
[20] J. Ortell Kingston aggressively pursued a financially-expansive agenda for the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc.[21] in the hopes of improving the financial condition of his followers.
[25][26] During the first years of the Davis County Cooperative Society, Elden Kingston and his followers wore unique blue denim outer garments that led to people referring to them as "blue-coats."
[citation needed] According to a 2011 document prepared by attorneys general Mark Shurtleff and Tom Horne, members of the DCCS describe it as emphasizing family values, education, self-sufficiency, and the belief that every child is a priceless blessing.
[28] In 2016, some members of the LDCC helped start Vanguard Academy charter school in West Valley, which continues to operate today.
This practice has been attributed to "endogamous preference and the small size of the group’s population" according to active members and recent research from the University of Santa Clara California (2019).
[37] Kathrine Nichols filed a federal lawsuit in January 2025 against the church, the Davis County Cooperative, her parents, grandparents, great-uncle, as well as her uncle who is also her ex-husband.
[46] Responding to child marriage allegations in September 2022, the organization told The Guardian that "current policy prohibits plural marriage for members under 18" and "once an individual has made a decision on who to marry, members are encouraged to seek the blessing of their parents, family and/or church leaders, but to say that one individual chooses or heavily influences who will marry who is entirely inaccurate".
[30] In 2016, the State of Utah with federal law enforcement raided various properties in connection with the Kingston family or Davis County Cooperative Society with the intention of finding welfare fraud.
[48] Members allege to have been targeted for audit at a rate over nine times the published IRS average for the general population, with no pattern of fraud being found outside of a couple of bad-actors.
[50] The scheme included filing for $512 million in federal renewable-fuel tax credits from 2010 to 2016 through a company named Washakie Renewable Energy LLC.
One of the guilty pleas states they "cycled" fraud proceeds through a number of international partners and then back to Washakie's bank accounts, falsely claiming them as loans or profits.
[53] As part of the plea deal and restitution, the company forfeits rights to a number of assets including their bio-fuel plant in Plymouth, Utah.