About Us

We are determined to rebuild our communities

Short Creek Festivities is a committee of life long residents of the combined communities, Hildale Utah, Colorado City, and Centennial Park Arizona, with the exception of Brody Olson. Brody is not originally from the communities but is very much loved and accepted as such. We are determined to rebuild our communities and see them begin to thrive economically and socially.

Our goal is to create events and opportunities for residents of the Short Creek Valley and surrounding communities to come together as equals and to exchange ideas as friends.

In the spring of 2015 George and Miriam Jessop, along with Harvey Dockstader, and Villia Holm founded Short Creek Festivities, and organized a July 4th celebration again after 13 years of no community celebrations of any kind. The attendance was expected to reach 250-500 people, a good turnout considering the massive number of residents who had left the community. George sent invites daily from the Facebook event page asking everyone to share and invite anyone they thought may have an interest. The number of responses soon reached 2000-2500, but on the day of the event we estimated 5000 people came. The healing that took place on this day changed our community. It ignited the flame to rekindle old friendships and make new relationships with people who were previously separated by religious beliefs.

Since that day there has been a constant stream of people who previously left the community, some claiming they would never come back, returning to reclaim their homes.

The July 4th events in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 were met with equal success. 2020 had a parade only due to COVID-19 restrictions. We expect this healing success to continue to grow with each July 4th event.

Short Creek Festivities is recognized by the IRS as a nonprofit public charity. Our IRS identification number is 82-0700914. It is our hope that we can raise the funds to make our community a fun and happy place.