One of the most interesting early locations of the Mormon Church in
Arizona was that of Moen Copie, about 75 miles southeast of Lee's Ferry.
The name is a Hopi one, signifying "running water" or "many springs." The
soil is alkaline, but it is a place where Indians had raised crops for
generations. The presiding spirit of the locality was Tuba, the Oraibi
chief, who had been taken by Jacob Hamblin to Utah, there to learn
something of the white man's civilization.
Joseph Fish wrote that at an early date Moen Copie was selected as a
missionary post by Jacob Hamblin and Andrew S. Gibbons and that in 1871
and 1872, John L. Blythe and family were at that point.
Permanent settlement on Moen Copie Creek was made December 4, 1875, by a
party headed by Jas. S. Brown. There was establishment of winter
quarters, centering in a stone house 40x20 feet, with walls twenty inches
thick. The house was on the edge of a cliff, with two rows of log houses
forming three sides of a square.