Anthony W. Ivins: Arizona Strip Cattle Boss, Colony Builder and Church Leader

Who Was Anthony W. Ivins?

Anthony Woodward Ivins is remembered in two worlds that rarely overlap: the cattle country of the Arizona Strip and the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was born in Toms River, New Jersey, in 1852 and died in Salt Lake City in 1934, according to his Wikipedia biography.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inducted him into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1958 for his contributions to the cattle industry, as that same article notes. Some secondary listings give a different death year, but the 1934 date is supported by two sources used here.

Early Life in St. George, Utah

The Ivins family moved to St. George, Utah, in 1861 as part of the original settling party. St. George was a planned colony in Utah's far southwest, and its early settlers raised cotton, grain and livestock in desert country.

Ivins returned to the town after a mission in 1877, took public posts, and in 1878 married Elizabeth Ashby Snow, a daughter of church apostle Erastus Snow. They had nine children, eight of whom reached adulthood.

Cattle on the Arizona Strip

After coming back to St. George from Mexico City in 1884, Ivins became a rancher. A biography on OnlineUtah says he managed the Mojave Land and Cattle Company and co-owned the Kaibab Cattle Company, and that together the two firms were the largest cattle owners on the Arizona Strip, the high desert country north of the Grand Canyon.

His Arizona holdings led to his appointment as assessor of Mohave County, Arizona. The sources reviewed do not give herd sizes, acreage or brand names for either company.

Mexico City, Colonia Juarez and the Mormon Colonies

In 1882 Ivins was called to a two-year mission in Mexico City. The St. George community helped finance it with a benefit performance of a play, The False Friend, which raised $109.95, plus $56.25 from other sources. He learned Spanish there.

In 1895 church president Wilford Woodruff called him to help establish Mormon colonies in Mexico, mainly for members practicing plural marriage. He spent about twelve years there with headquarters at Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua. He presided over the Juarez Stake, the first stake in Mexico, and served as vice president and general manager of the Mexican Colonization and Agricultural Company. He oversaw eight colonies in Chihuahua and Sonora.

Public Offices and the Road to the Apostleship

Ivins was constable, a city council member, prosecuting attorney for Washington County and mayor of St. George in the early 1890s, when his administration built a canal to the city. He also served in the Utah territorial House of Representatives, acted as a special Indian agent for the Shivwits band of Southern Paiutes, and was a delegate to the 1895 Utah constitutional convention.

He was ordained an apostle on October 6, 1907. From 1921 until his death he served in the First Presidency, as second counselor to Heber J. Grant until 1925 and first counselor afterward.

Revolution and Setbacks in Mexico

The Mexican colonies did not last intact. In 1913 Ivins wrote to colony leader Joseph C. Bentley about colonists being forced out by revolutionary activity, according to the OnlineUtah biography. The Arizona Strip cattle business, for its part, operated in country where drought and harsh winters could hit herds hard, though the sources reviewed do not record specific losses for his companies.

Honors and Legacy

The town of Ivins, Utah, is named for him, and Ivins Mountain in Zion National Park was named in 1935. His Hall of Great Westerners induction came in 1958. The Hall of Great Westerners overview lists other honorees.

For more on Western cattle country, visit the ranching section of farm.FM, or read a farm.FM story about Arizona Strip cattle.