Bunkerville Celebrates 145th Anniversary Of Settlement

By AMY DAVIS

The Progress

Old and young alike gathered to hear tales of hardship, adventure, faith: all true stories of how the west, namely Bunkerville, was won.

On Saturday morning January 8, the 145th anniversary of Bunkerville, descendants and community members of the Virgin Valley met in the Bunkerville Cemetery to tell stories of their ancestors who settled the valley.

There was music in the celebration. The event began with the crowd singing “Home Means Nevada.” Later a musical number by Adam Anderson with his guitar singing “When it is Nighttime in Nevada,” an old Roy Rogers song.

The entire 2-hour event was heart felt and emotions were close to the surface for many in attendance. Speakers and guests alike were often seen wiping tears from cheeks as they told the courageous stories of their ancestors.

Mike Waite was a driving force behind the event and feels strongly that the descendants of those who settled Bunkerville, have a heritage equal to many in the United States and the world.

Waite said that his goal was to let people in attendance “meet” the people who settled the valley.
“Often we say the ditch was dug, the field was plowed, the homes were built,” Waite said. “But we miss, of course, in this telling, the smell of sweat and the feel of callouses and bent backs and the feeling of determination and faith. We see that in our little town of Bunkerville as we talk about the people who dug that ditch and plowed those fields and built those homes.”

Paula Bunker Perez told of her ancestor, Edward Bunker, Sr.
“He was described as a man of small nature, energetic and industrious,” Perez said. “He was always patient and cheerful and was well versed in the scriptures.”

Perez explained that prior to coming to Bunkerville, Edward Sr. was part of the Dixie United Order in Santa Clara. This religious and social experiment which brought communities together to voluntarily have all things in common failed.

But Edward Sr. could see the value in the Order, Perez said. He asked the Mormon prophet and leader Brigham Young if he could try it again 50 miles south of St. George along the Rio Virgin. On January 1, a group was organized, and they departed for their new location.

According to historical notes, on their first Sunday in Bunkerville, Edward Bunker Sr., gathered the new settlers together for prayer.

Perez related that “…with wheat in one hand and soil in the other” Edward asked God to “bless the seed that it might yield abundantly, that the earth might be fertile and rich, that the water would be applied to the land and that the elements might not destroy their crops.” He also prayed for peace in the land, Perez said.

Bunkerville was settled in January 1877 by an offshoot of the main Mormon church called the United Order of Enoch. The order was designed to be a communal lifestyle and promote a self-sufficient, family community, designed to eliminate poverty and achieve income equality. The order was unsuccessful and disbanded by 1881, but land was parceled out and many people stayed.

On Saturday, seven speakers honored their ancestors with beautiful tributes that spoke to aspects of their ancestors’ harrowing journeys that lead them to Bunkerville. Stories were told of Bunkers, Leavitts, Abbotts, Adams, Waites and Hunts.

The land was wild, full of desert plants that needed clearing, water that needed to be diverted to dry earth and summers without air conditioning.

One thing each speaker pointed out was the camaraderie and friendship and care that each person had for each other in the early pioneer community of Bunkerville. They truly needed to depend on one another.

Marlene Leavitt Duty spoke of her ancestor Lemuel Leavitt and perhaps his sentiments expressed the idea of the love felt in Bunkerville. Duty said that Leavitt valued his community.

She quoted him as saying, “Everyone was family, everyone was referred to as aunt and uncle even when there was no biological connection.”

Each speaker talked about how the early residents looked after one another. They made sure each neighbor had enough to eat, they tended each other’s sick, and they celebrated any chance they got with a community dance.