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Finding Aid to the Llano del Rio Records,
1911-1969
MS 1304
MS 1304
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Table of contents
Title: Llano del Rio records
Date (inclusive): 1911-1969
Collection Number: MS 1304
Creator:
Llano Colony (Secular community)
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Language of Materials: Collection materials are in English.
Extent:
5 boxes,
1 oversize folder
(2.0 Linear feet)
Abstract: Most of the collection was collected by longtime colonist, Walter Millsap, and includes papers from the early years of the
colony in California and Louisiana (1911-1930), correspondence between Millsap and other colonists (1920-1958), and files
from the assets recovery attempt (1959-1969). Board of directors' files (1959-1969) include minutes and papers, meeting proxies,
and other documents. Correspondence is chiefly between Millsap and over 100 other colonists.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the California Historical Society. All requests for permission to publish or quote from
manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Research Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf
of the California Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Llano del Rio Records, MS 1304. California Historical Society, Manuscript Collection.
Collection also available on microfilm (NEG 23: 1-5).
Photographs transferred to Photography Collection--Restricted Materials--General Subjects--Utopian Communities.
Paul Kagan Papers
MS 3121
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Collective settlements--California, Southern.
Collective settlements--Louisiana.
Millsap, Walter, 1886-1971.
Minutes.
Utopian socialism--California, Southern.
Utopian socialism--Louisiana.
Paul Kagan collected most of this material from Walter Millsap before his death in 1971. See Series 2 folder 28, Series 3
folder 147 for material given by Mellie Calvert. All of this was transferred to CHS in 1972.
No additions are expected.
Collection processed by CHS staff.
History of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony
The colony of Llano del Rio was formed in 1914 by Job Harriman, a socialist lawyer and politician from Los Angeles. Harriman
sought to provide an economic underpinning to the ideas of socialism by organizing a cooperative colony. Harriman and a group
of associates sought land for the site of the colony, settling on 10,000 acres in the Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles.
They incorporated the Llano del Rio company in California in 1914, and later reincorporated under Nevada law in 1916.
Harriman placed advertisements in
Western Comrade and the
California Social-Democrat, soliciting individuals and families interested in participating in the venture. Membership was achieved through a $500 purchase
of 2,000 shares of stock in the company, the balance to be paid in labor at a variety of jobs available at the colony.
The colony grew quickly, burgeoning to a thousand members by 1917. The first year saw colonists living in tents while permanent
structures were built - adobe houses and a hotel boasting electricity and indoor plumbing. The colony sought to be as self-sufficient
as possible, and in addition to the cultivation of fruit trees, melons, potatoes, beans and other crops produced dairy, poultry
and pork products, and had an apiary and a rabbitry. Colonists earned four dollars a day for their work, a dollar of which
paid off the balance of membership, and the rest going toward living expenses.
By 1917, it became clear that the choice of site had been a mistake. Though hydrological surveys indicated that sufficient
water supplies existed to irrigate up to 40,000 acres, the colony soon experienced a serious shortfall in water. Small rainfall,
an insufficient resevoir, and limited rights to water from Big Rock Creek forced the colony to abandon the site and seek greener
pastures elsewhere.
The Llano colonists boarded a chartered train, transporting themselves, machinery and livestock to Stables, Louisiana, an
anbandoned mill town, renaming it Newllano. Some colonists were to remain in California, and develop the land to focus on
fruit tree production. The following year however, creditors began involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against Llano, and the
colony's California assets were foreclosed upon.
Job Harriman returned to California, where he died in 1925. George Pickett stepped in to lead Newllano until it declared bankruptcy
in 1936, falling apart completely by 1938. An attempt to recover their assets was begun in 1959 by Pickett and others.
Sources
Hoffman, A. (1961) A look at Llano: Experiment in Economic Socialism.
California Historical Society Quarterly. 40(3), 215-236
Huxley, A. & Kagan, P. (1972) A Double Look at Utopia: the Llano del Rio Colony.
California Historical Society Quarterly. 51(2) 117-154
The collection is divided into two time periods. The first includes papers collected by Walter Millsap from the early years
in California and Louisiana, 1911-1930. The second involves an attempt beginning in 1959 by George Pickett, Job Harriman's
successor, to reaquire the assets the Newllano, LA colony lost in 1936 bankruptcy preceedings.
Administrative files from the first time period include documents pertaining to incorporation and the issuance of stock, employment
agreements and organizational chart, memos and official correspondence, expense reports from the move by rail from Palmdale,
CA to Stables, LA.
Other materials representative of daily life in Llano include meal tickets, pamphlets written by members pertaining to personal
experiences and the economic and organizational hardships of the colony, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera. A survey
of the Big Rock Creek Irrigation District is located in oversize map case storage.Correspondence is from members and researchers
such as Clark Kerr and Upton Sinclair interested in the goings-on of the colony.
The second time period, 1959-1969, consists largely of minutes and meeting papers, stockholder papers, and a proposed charter
for the reorganization of the colony. Correspondence from this period includes letters from ex-members, as well as those desiring
to continue with the colony.
Arranged into 4 series:
The first two series includes materials dating from 1911 to 1959.
Series 1: Administrative Files
Series 2: Correspondence
The second two series include materials from 1959 to 1969, when George T. Picket attempted to regain the assests of Llano
Colony after a 1936 bankruptcy filing.
Series 3: Board of Directors' Files
Series 4: Correspondence