The Kaweah Commonwealth: A Journal for Those Who Labor and Think. Vol. 2, No, 4. Four Copies.

(UTOPIAN COLONY)

Published by The Kaweah Commonwealth, Tulare County, 1890

About this Item

Four copies of the same issue. First editions. Bifolios (4 pp.; 16 1/4 x 11 inches). Minor wear to edges but a very good copies.In January of 1890 U.S. authorities informed the Kaweah Colony that they would have to vacate the site near the Kaweah River (Three Rivers, California). The eviction/leave action followed in the surrounding months that year. These issues are Dec. 13, 1890 and it is clear they know their days are numbered. From the first page - the Governor of California, in a letter date September 24, 1890, which was solicited by the Secretary, states in substance that the greatest difficulty will be in the extinguishment of private rights. No doubt the land set apart for the park [Sequoia] will be found covered with private claims, the annihilation of which will be extremely expensive. The cost should be borne by the United Stated Government."Influenced by Grodlund and other prominent writers, a group of Bay Area residents, lead by the labor activists, organized the Kaweah Co-Operative Commonwealth (the Kaweah Colony). Its purpose was to patent the newly opened timbered resources of eastern Tulare County and use the timber as the basis for a new society. Eastern Tulare was largely inaccessible and thus of little interest to commercial timber interests. The participants applied for 53 patents covering 12,000 acres of land surrounding the forks of the Kaweah River. The Land Patent Office, suspicious of recent fraudulent patent activity in Humboldt County, was slow to process the claims. Assuming success, and perhaps encouraged by the land agents to move forward, the Kaweah Commonwealth was launched without the patents. Funds were not only raised by the participants as part of a buy-in, but also from national and European sources as well. Many of the members never lived at Kaweah, but active clubs supporting Kaweah existed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and New York. The colony was begun, and its principal undertaking, starting in 1886, was the construction of an 18 mile road over a four year period to access the standing timber resources. The plan was that the logs were to be cut, milled, and then hauled to market. In terms of daily life, the colony has its own medium of exchange, wherein all participants were paid, based upon the time devoted to Colony undertakings. The time credits could be exchanged for meals and goods at the Colony store. Recognizing that all labor was valuable, all work was credited at the same exchange rate.The Colony began at Arcady, up from Three Rivers. As most labor and resources were devoted to the road construction, few other prominent improvements were developed other than improvised road construction camps. The Colony received a death blow, when, at the same time that the road was completed in 1890, Congress created Sequoia National Park, with the surrounding lands dedicated to national forest. As the Land Office had never taken final action on the colonists land patents, their work was for naught. Their land claims were rejected and they were now trespassers, charged with stealing timber resources from the federal lands. By 1890, colony constructed buildings in Kaweah, including a hall for dining and meetings, a blacksmith shop, a print shop, a barn and a blacksmith shop. The post office still stands (although in a different location), and the colonist?s road was used by the Park Service for many years as the only road to the sequoia groves. Among other accomplishments, the colonists published a newspaper, the Kaweah Commonwealth (still published today.)By 1892, most of the Colony had disbanded. Its peak population is estimated at about 300 individuals, and membership peaked at 500" (W. W. Abbott).

Seller Inventory # 76907

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Kaweah Commonwealth: A Journal for Those Who Labor and Think. Vol. 2, No, 4. Four Copies.
• Publisher: The Kaweah Commonwealth, Tulare County
• Publication Date: 1890