DIXIE STATE COLLEGE LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Saving Their School: The 1933 Transfer of Dixie College as an Indicator of Utah’s Changing Church and State Relationships By SCOTT C. ESPLIN
T
he settling of southern Utah is a story of obedience, as men and women of faith followed a prophet’s call to populate a remote desert outpost. In a few short years they transformed the desert into a social oasis, complete with farms, businesses, churches, a temple, and, importantly, schools. Chief among them was the St. George Stake Academy (later known as Dixie College and more recently Dixie State College of Utah), obediently founded at the call of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Wilford Woodruff in 1888. Formed out of the cauldron of the anti-polygamy crusade and the quest for Utah statehood, Dixie College struggled through an on-and-off existence until it was firmly established as a church-run junior college in the 1920s. However, while the saints were transforming the desert, the church was transforming its educational policy. In the late 1920s, leaders decided to remove the LDS church from private education, turning the schools over to the state The St. George Stake Academy or discontinuing them altogether. Dixie building, which was constructed College felt the effects of the decision as offi- 1909-1911, was transferred to the state of Utah in 1933. cials and residents scrambled to respond.
Scott C. Esplin is Assistant Professor, Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University.
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