Sioux Falls, South Dakota — A compound in rural Custer County, about nine miles southwest of the small town of Pringle, blends in with the surrounding landscape, as do other properties in southern Black Hills.
But, behind the natural beauty of the Black Hills, a compound near the small town of just over 100 people has gained notoriety as the setting for stories like this. Stories about polygamy, faulty recordkeeping, and allegations of abuse.
Rather than being known for W.H. Pringle, the cattleman after whom the town was named, it became associated with another surname: Jeffs.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) no longer has any organized presence in the state. After being led for many years by its prophet, Warren Jeffs, the group is now fragmented, with remnants scattered across the country. Jeffs is currently serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for sexual assault on a child.
Now that the Jeffs no longer own and operate the Custer County compound, KELOLAND News Digital Reporter Jacob Newton has discovered evidence of ties between SDR Training Center and a completely different fundamentalist Mormon group, independent of the FLDS and Jeffs.
The Order, also known as the Kingston Order, the Kingston Group, the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), or the Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ (LDCJC), is not affiliated with the FLDS, but their story may sound familiar.
The Order is a fundamentalist Mormon organization that has engaged in polygamy, incest, child abuse, child labor violations, and fraud, according to the Associated Press. The Order appears to be present in South Dakota, with activity reported at the compound in 2023 and 2024.
It is unclear why the Order purchased the Hills compound. Buildings on the property have recently been listed as available for rent on Airbnb.
A child care program, a family day care with a capacity for 12 children, was registered with the South Dakota Department of Social Services in 2025 at the former FLDS compound address.
KELOLAND News contacted the number listed on the program profile and was informed that all child care slots are currently full.
Warren Jeffs’ brothers, Lyle and Seth Jeffs, had more direct ties to South Dakota, where they were arrested on fraud charges.
KELOLAND News first reported on the compound in 2006, sending a crew there but being unable to approach it. Locals in the area expressed concern about the group’s construction noise and the secrecy with which they operated.
More questions were raised in 2015, when members of the group requested and received a state permit to increase the site’s water usage.
The FBI arrested Lyle Jeffs in Yankton in 2017, after he was charged with defrauding the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). He was sentenced to prison in 2017 and will be released in 2021. Seth Jeffs was also arrested in connection with the SNAP fraud. At the time of his arrest, he was driving on the highway near the compound with a group of women. At the time, he was the compound’s active leader.
A judge’s ruling in 2018 clarified the situation, confirming that children were born on the compound despite the complete lack of birth certificates being issued.
Tim Goodwin, a longtime South Dakota lawmaker and current Republican representative from Rapid City, told KELOLAND News about his concerns about the group over the years.
“I used to get letters from Warren Jeffs,” Goodwin told the KELOLAND News in 2022. “From a prison in Texas. You did not want to read them because they were signed by ‘Jesus Christ.’ He was telling me that he was a prophet of God, which was so blasphemous that you thought you were going to hell just reading it.
Goodwin also had dark suspicions about the compound itself, which he claimed were told to him by Roy Jeffs, Warren’s son who had left the group as an adult.
The FLDS’s presence at the compound ended when it defaulted on its $1.6 million loan, as reported by KELOLAND in January 2021.
The property was foreclosed on, and in 2021, it was sold for $750,000 at a sheriff’s auction to three men – Andrew Chatwin, Patrick Pipkin, and Claude Seth Cooke – who were representing Blue Mountain Ranch LLC.
Chatwin, Pipkin, and Cooke secured a $2 million judgment against the FLDS. In 2021, Pipkin told the Rapid City Journal that he had left the FLDS 15 years earlier. After purchasing the compound in 2021, they listed it in 2022 for $6.9 million, which included 77 bedrooms and 74 bathrooms.
The property was under contract for sale in May 2023. A few weeks later, the property was sold to the SDR Training Center. The South Dakota Secretary of State recognized SDR Training Center as a nonprofit church at the time.
In May 2023, KELOLAND News learned that the property was under contract. A few weeks later, we discovered that it had been sold, and we obtained paperwork outlining the sale to a group called SDR Training Center, which was listed as a nonprofit church in the state’s business records.
What exactly constitutes this group? A cult? A business? A church? Former members KELOLAND spoke with described it as all of these things.
These are all variations on what those interviewed by KELOLAND News during this investigation referred to as the Order. Former members of the group, a former investigator with the state of Utah, and an academic with an interest in fundamentalist groups are among the sources used.
Cristina Rosetti, an assistant professor of humanities at Utah Tech, has a PhD in religious studies and has done extensive research into the lived experience and history of Mormon fundamentalism in the Intermountain West region of the United States.
“The Order is part of the larger Mormon fundamentalist movement,” Rosetti told KELOLAND News. “When people imagine Mormon fundamentalism, they often imagine the FLDS, but fundamentalism is an umbrella term for any group or independent family that continues to practice the principle of plural marriage.”
There are hundreds of Mormon fundamentalist religions in the U.S., according to Rosetti, but she says that The Order is one of the larger groups.
The Order differs from what would be considered more mainstream Latter Day Saints congregations in that it still practices polygamy, Rosetti said.
“Most Mormon fundamentalist groups are the result of a schism that occurred in the 1950s that resulted in the FLDS and the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB – another fundamentalist group),” says Rosetti. “The [Order] is unique for its size in that it didn’t break off from either of those in any kind of substantive way. From its inception, it has been truly unique.
The Order also has its roots with a man named Charles Kingston, Rosetti explained. He was a member of the Mormon church, and was later excommunicated for his polygamous beliefs in 1928, according to the Davis County Cooperative Society.
Rosetti explained by the time Brigham Young became the leader of the LDS church, polygamy was a requirement.
“That’s definitely downplayed now in the LDS church, but Brigham Young literally said that you will not become God – ‘yea, even the son of God’ – without entering into the principle of plural marriage,” she explained.
Polygamy was a requirement to reach heaven, said Rosetti, but in the 1890s, the LDS changed its mind.
Rosetti said Kingston was sure the LDS had gone astray and his son, Elden Kingston, became the leader of what would become the Kingstons.
This excommunication, and Kingston’s religious conviction, was set along the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Kingston family would grow to become today’s Order that now occupies land in the southern Black Hills.
