THE ALLRED GROUP

With the split in Priesthood Council in 1952 and the death of Joseph W. Musser in 1954, Rulon C. Allred was left as the uncontested leader of those following the new council. Rulon continued to replace members of the Priesthood Council who died or apostatized. George W. Scott, Ormand F. Lavery, Marvin M. Jessop, J. Lamoine Jensen, George E. Maycock, John Whitman Ray, Morris Y. Jessop, and William H. Baird were called. Throughout the 1960s, the Allred Group membership expanded through new converts and childbirths (which were plentiful). Plural marriages, always performed by members of the Priesthood Council, might take place in a home, a church, a meadow, high in the surrounding mountains, or at a sacred altar. They eventually incorporated themselves as the Apostolic United Brethren Church, or AUB for short.

Rulon Allred decided in 1961 to purchase 640 acres of ranch land in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana, with the intent of establishing a united order there. In 1983, it was incorporated as the city of Pinesdale, located close to Hamilton and Missoula. By 1973, more than 400 fundamentalists called it home, increasing to over 800 persons and 250 families in 1998. Besides a large concentration in the Salt Lake City area, today adherents may be found in several locations in central and southern Utah, including Rocky Ridge and Cedar City. In 1970, the number of AUB members was close to 2,500 expanding to over 6,000 by the year 2000.