ELDORADO – The satellite trucks and talk show hosts have packed up and gone. But this West Texas town, notorious for its now nearly deserted polygamist ranch, knows no normal.

The Lady Eagles high school softball team – competing in the state playoffs – are fielding more questions about the ranch than they are pop flies.

Attendance is strong at the Community Baptist Church's Sunday night DVD series: "Unveiling Polygamy."

And five weeks since authorities raided the Yearning For Zion ranch and took hundreds of children into state custody, ranchers in this farming town are only now resuming coffee shop conversations about when it will rain.

"The attention has come and gone over the years, but none of that prepared us for this," said Eldorado Success editor Randy Mankin, whose newspaper office, until recently, boasted the sign: "No interviews. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted."

"Normal doesn't exist for us anymore."

It's a word that hasn't fit Eldorado since 2004, when members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that broke with mainstream Mormons over polygamy decades ago, set up a colony here.

At first, longtime residents were fearful, gritting their teeth as new construction sprang up on the horizon, and bracing themselves for when their new neighbors tried to take over city boards and the school district.

But that day never came.

Instead, the sect's world became a source of speculation – and a tourist attraction. Some made T-shirts: "Eldorado, polygamy capital of Texas." Others made up jokes: "How do you get an Eldorado divorce? Use a bottle of white-out!" On Schleicher County Day, a local pilot offered flyover tours of the ranch.

High jinks aside, the sect remains a sore spot for longtime Eldoradoans who say they can't go anywhere without someone asking them how many husbands or wives they have.

"I think in a way the raid let us breathe a big sigh of relief," said Gloria Swift, a 37-year resident of Eldorado who runs a local coffee shop.

And most in town won't be too torn up if the sect members don't return.

"Something needed to be done," said Steve Kirby, 54, who owns Eldorado's Katdaddy Barbeque. "This is not the place for them to be practicing that religion."

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