"[2] Fundamentalist leader John Barlow believed that the isolated Creek could provide a place of refuge for those engaging in the covert practice of polygamy, which was criminalized using bigamy statutes from 1935 to 2013 and 2017 to 2020.

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.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) later developed in the same geographical region and changed the name to Colorado City and Hildale to eliminate any ties to the Short Creek raids.

They felt that the existence of the Council of Friends gave them the right to continue solemnizing plural marriages even after Church President Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto strenuously disapproving of the practice.

[4][5][6] As of 2017[update], the descendants of the Short Creek Community are reported to have a high incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic disease.