Thomas Leavitt House, a brick house built in the nineteenth century in

Bunkerville, Nevada Bunkerville is a census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The population was 1,303 at the 2010 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the census-designated place of Bunkerville (which may not c ...

, United States, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. The Thomas Leavitt House was built by Thomas Dudley Leavitt (1857–1933), who was born in

Santa Clara, Utah Santa Clara is a city in Washington County, Utah, United States and is a part of the St. George Metropolitan Area. The population was 7,553 at the 2020 census, up from 6,003 at the 2010 census, and 4,630 at the 2000 census. The city is a wes ...

, the son of Lemuel Sturdevant Leavitt and his wife Laura Melvina (Thompson). Thomas Dudley Leavitt settled in

, near Mesquite, Nevada. in 1877 with 22 other members of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...

. Leavitt's group harked back to church pioneer

Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, ...

, founding a utopian community based on an economic system based on cooperative labor and communal property ownership, principles that

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into severa ...

leader

Brigham Young Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as ch ...

had set aside in favor of the

tithing A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or ...

system. But Young permitted the settlement to proceed despite his differences with the utopian ideals of the

United Order In the Latter Day Saint movement, the United Order (also called the United Order of Enoch) was one of several 19th-century church collectivist programs. Early versions of the Order beginning in 1831 attempted to fully implement the law of consecr ...

settlers. Thomas Leavitt built a two-story brick home in Bunkerville for his first wife Louella (Abbott). Then Leavitt subsequently married a second wife Ada (Waite). The prosperous Leavitt, who had thrived growing grain, raising cattle and selling molasses, built another home for the family. The T-shaped house, two stories high and one room deep, had chimneys at each end. The design was typical of the homes of Mormon settlers dispersing from Salt Lake northward to

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

and southward towards

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

. The house featured multiple exterior doors, which in a Mormon polygamist community meant that the house would allow circulation while allowing some interior privacy. The house had no hallways, and was surrounded by large wooden porches on the exterior. Eventually, the large home couldn't contain the Mormon settler's entire brood. He had gone on to father some 22 children—11 with each wife. So Leavitt built a house next door for his wife Ada. The original brick house today is listed on the

. It sits on a large lot surrounded by a picket fence, with honey locust trees, chicken coops and the house's original stone granary out back. The house retains the character of the early Mormon utopian settlement.Leavitt House, Bunkerville, Clark County, Nevada, online nevada encyclopedia
/ref> Thomas Dudley Leavitt Park in Bunkerville is also named for the early Mormon pioneer.

References

{{Nevada State Historic Places/Clark Houses in Clark County, Nevada Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nevada National Register of Historic Places in Clark County, Nevada Residential buildings in the Las Vegas metropolitan area