It was a freaky experience. I spent almost a week there, observing the culture and trying to get interviews. The photographer and I had to carefully navigate around the community and I got many doors slammed in my face. But we were able to drive in and wander about. The women looked like Stepford Wives. The kids looked like they were on a Little House on the Prairie set. Ultimately my photographer and I were booted out by the Sheriff.

Back then, I was amazed by the power structure of the communities and how the men of wealth and power had the largest number of wives. (In that era, it was admitted, that the Mayor has five, the Sherif had 3.)

Boys and girls were not allowed to sit next to each other. In fact, a polygamist I finally got an interview with kept jumping from one couch to another when I would sit next to him with my tape recorder, until he finally explained he could not sit next to a woman who was not his wife.

The homes were obviously set up for plural marriages and families yet the polygamists were careful to never be photographed with more than one wife. The women took turns sleeping with their husbands and made schedules that they followed in this regard. The polygamist who would not sit next to me said he would leave his shoes outside the bedroom door so everyone know where daddy was on any particular night.

The twin towns were built on the border of the two states so that an entire community could run to the other state quickly if there were ever a state raid. There was a raid in the fifties that was a disaster -- for the governor who called it. Elected officials since then would just whistle and look in the other direction ... until now.

Townspeople in the area said that the government left these folks alone because it was more of a hassle to arrest them.

Back when I was there, I finally got an interview with one of the town leaders who was embroiled in a battle to keep the six children of a woman he had married on her death bed. The sisters of this woman were fighting for the kids. It was nasty. But not even close to the heinous activities reported in those communities in recent years.

When I was there in 1990, the communities were still run by Ruolon Jeffs, and while it was a weird place, you didn't hear stories of teenage boys being forced out of the community or rape of underage girls forced into marriage. Perhaps it was less rampant, or covered up more.

I was troubled by how women lived and were expected to live in these communities. It was so was so strange to see them wander about, as if lost in another era. Yet, the women I spoke to on the streets -- I did get a few to talk with me back then -- said they were happy and following a true path.

Read more about the polygamist Nevada wedding story:

http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5379638&nav=menu102_2