William Jordan Flake (July 3, 1839 – August 10, 1932) was a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who helped settle parts of Arizona, and was imprisoned at the Yuma Territorial Prison for polygamy. Life and career Flake was born in Anson County, North Carolina, the fourth son of Agnes Love and James Madison Flake. When he was three, his family moved to Kemper County, Mississippi. In 1844, they became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. Flake and his family moved to the Salt Lake Valley in 1846 by wagon train with the Mormon pioneers, arriving in 1848. In 1849, his father was killed on the American River while examining a gold mining site for the church in California. His widowed mother took her three children to San Bernardino; she died in 1856. Flake and his siblings returned to Utah to live with Amasa Lyman and his family. On December 30, 1858, William Flake married Lucy Hannah White; they were nineteen and sixteen years old respectively. A year later, they started a cattle ranch in Beaver County, Utah. Flake was called by church leaders to enter into a plural marriage in 1868. Lucy agreed to the marriage, because of her belief in the LDS Church; she even helped choose his second wife. William Flake and Prudence Kartchner were married in October 1868. Flake and Kartchner would have seven children. In 1877, he was called by LDS Church President Brigham Young to start a settlement in the northern area of what was then the Arizona Territory. William left with a wagon train and herds of cattle for the Little Colorado River region of Arizona and arrived in January 1878. Despite much hardship after spending 13 months on the trail and a winter living in stables and wagons, the settlement survived. In the fall of 1878, Erastus Snow, an LDS Apostle, visited and joined with Flake naming the town Snowflake: "Snow for me and Flake for you." On December 5, 1884, Flake was tried in Prescott, Arizona in the District Court and found guilty for practice of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation, a common charge used to prosecute LDS men under the Edmunds Act. Flake received a $500 fine and was imprisoned in the Yuma Territorial Prison for six months. While in prison, Flake still served as one of