Few things tell so many stories in so few words as the name of a place -- at least in a well-named place; one whose name was earned. We hide our history in the words we use to refer to home. Some names are born in the affections (or grievances) of a place's inhabitants. Just as often, however,  the name is bestowed upon a place by outsiders, whether in admiration, amusement, or less pleasant sentiments.

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'Little Utah' was not a name that the members of the historic Mormon congregation based there would have chosen for their community. Officially the Satilla Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the tiny chapel and its congregation were simply called 'Satilla Church,' or 'the Mormon Church' in common conversation, by congregants and non-Mormons alike. As was common among church-based villages across the South, the colony of converts that grew up around the Satilla Branch Chapel, in what is now northeastern Atkinson County (Georgia), likely would have come to call the area 'Satilla,' or something akin to it, had their detractors not made every effort to sneer nicknames when referring to the area's concentration of LDS Church members. Though outwardly dismissive and condescending at times, the county's most anti-Mormon voices decried the faith, and expressed concern over the growing number of converts, who seemed almost to be colonizing the Satilla River's upper forks.

 

In their criticism of Mormon doctrine and in their observations about what must have seemed like a potentially significant Mormon voting block, they used derogatory language, intended to belittle and intimidate. Some of the names, like "Heathen Hill," and "Polygamy Farm," seem to have achieved this to an extent.

 

Others, however, had the opposite effect, stirring among the local Latter-day Saints a certain amount of pride in their progress and solidifying a cohesive identity. Far from belittled, many Mormons recognized the acknowledgement of their movement and its legitimacy in names like "Mormonville," "Brigham's Bluff," and, most satisfying of them all in the view of local converts: "Little Utah." The parishioners of the Satilla Branch delighted in the intended slant by their opponents, who had unintentionally given the young church its most enduring and beloved identifier. 

An elderly member of the Church, and grandchild of two Satilla Branch founders recently provided this excellent summary of the phenomenon of owning unsolicited nicknames:  

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When anybody said they were going from Axson to Nicholls, or Douglas, or anywhere above the [Satilla] River, they loved  to tell them: "Looks like you're headed through Mormon country then. There ain't nothin' but Mormons out yonder. Ever'thing 'tween Axson and the River is Little Utah." 

They loved it because they thought it embarrassed us.   

We loved it because it was true.