By Elspeth Kuta, Director Virgin Valley Heritage Museum
Below is an original photo of the relief Society House: Relief Society Bldg Had the first Baptismal Font #7 Walking Tour
Circa 1929, James E. Hughes donated ground to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a Relief Society building for the women’s auxiliary. The first small room was moved from the Tithing Lot next door. Circa 1935 there was need for a larger building. Bud Burgess, with local help, built this building, making a basement and adding two rooms on the back. In one back room they built a font where many members of the church were baptized. Prior to that, most baptisms were held in a deep part of the irrigation canal nearby, known as the “Charlo Hole.”
The building was used for meetings, service projects, quilting bees, and even as a schoolroom at one time. In 1948 a new brick chapel was being built on Mesquite Boulevard for the LDS church, so the Relief Society building was sold and the money used toward the new chapel. The contractor who bought it divided the large room into four smaller ones. Since 1950 it has been a private dwelling. After the death of Verde Hughes, who with her husband Wesley raised 12 kids in the house, the City of Mesquite bought the house in 2004.
