Home > William J. Flake

William Flake was born in North Carolina. His family moved to Mississippi and in the early 1840s became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Flake moved to Utah with his parents in 1849 by wagon train. In 1850, his father was killed while examining a colony site in California. His widowed mother took the family and became one the earliest residents of San Bernardino.

In 1858, William Flake married Lucy Hannah White and a year later started a cattle ranch in Beaver, Utah. In 1877, he was called by LDS Church President Brigham Young to start a settlement in northern Arizona. William left with a wagon train and herds of cattle for the Little Colorado region of Arizona and arrived in January 1878.

Despite much hardship after spending 13 months on the trail a winter living in stables and wagons the settlement survived. In the fall of 1878, Erastus Snow , an Apostle of the Church , visited and joined with Flake naming the town Snowflake: "Snow for me and Flake for you."

Flake was called by Church leaders to enter into a plural marriage. He asked his wife to consider the decision. After much prayer and consideration, she agreed. William Flake and Prudence Kartchner were married in 1868.

Flake was a rancher and prominent cattleman noted for his generosity and assistance to his neighbors. In 1883, Flake was imprisoned in the Yuma Territorial PrisonThe Yuma Territorial Prison was a prison in the Arizona Territory in the United States. It accepted its first inmate on July 1, 1876. For the next 33 years 3069 prisoners, including 29 women, served sentences there for crimes ranging from murder to polyga for a short time for unlawful co-habitation. After his release, he was asked which of his wives he was going to give up. He replied, "Neither. I married both in good faith and intended to support both of them." He had served his sentence and could not be retried on the same charges.

William Jordan Flake was the father of 15 sons and five daughters and lived to the age of 93. When he died, the flagA flag is a piece of cloth flown from a pole or mast, usually intended for signaling or identification. Flags were initially created for signalling (as in semaphore), and for the identification of those who displayed them, and are still used for that purp at the Arizona Capitol was flown at half staffThe design and description of flags typically uses specialized flag terminology with precise and technical meanings (a form of jargon). Flag illustrations generally depict flags flying from the observer's point of view from left to right, the view known a in honor of his contribution to the settlement of the state.