Tuba (Chief) - Tuba City and Baptism

Tuba City and Baptism

In 1873, Tuba again invited the Mormons to come and live by his village of Moencopi. This time, the offer was accepted, although a permanent Latter-day Saint presence did not become a reality until 1875. But the resultant community became the first Mormon settlement in Arizona. Hopi tradition has it that Tuba invited the Mormons to settle near his village in order to gain protection from marauding Paiutes and Navajos. Whatever the case may be, the Mormons came and Tuba was baptized into the LDS Church in 1876. In April, 1877, Tuba and his wife attended the dedication of the Mormon temple in St. George, Utah in company with missionary Andrew S. Gibbons and his wife. It was sometime during this period that Tuba shared his new faith with Tom Polacca, a headman at Hano on First Mesa, who was also eventually baptized. In September 1878, Tuba helped lay out the site for a new Mormon town near Moencopi which would be called Tuba City. Both Mormons and some Hopis moved into the new town, although other Hopi leaders objected when Tuba gave the land on which the town was situated to the Mormons. In 1879, a wool factory was built in Tuba City in order to "benefit the Indians and the Church." No doubt this edifice reminded Tuba of the factory which had so engaged his imagination in southern Utah nine years before.