The Dream of a Model Commonwealth
Six years after founding a cooperative colony in Port Angeles, its pioneers reflect on how a vision of shared interests turned into standard business success.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The original and pioneer organizers of the Puget Sound Co-Operative Colony celebrated the sixth annual reunion of the organization last night at the opera house in Port Angeles. The principal speaker was Judge George Venable Smith, its founder and first president. The colony was first organized in Seattle on May 10, 1887. George Venable Smith was the promoter of the movement, which began with only seven or eight members who were all poor. At their first meetings, when they decided to start a paper, only twenty subscribers were obtained, but within fifteen months, the paper had a circulation of 2,500. The movement grew, and a large portion of the present townsite of Port Angeles was purchased to carry out the ideas of a model commonwealth. Today, the Puget Sound Co-operative Colony no longer exists as a co-operative institution. It is a business corporation, owning some $250,000 in property. A singular fact is that although it was organized by poor people without the taint of dishonesty, all of the original promoters who remained are now in comparative affluence. A large number, since their accumulation of property, seem to have had the scales fall from their eyes and no longer advocate a 'community of interests' or a 'division of profits.' In fact, they could not be distinguished from ordinary mortals with no unreasonable ambitions.
“A large number, since their accumulation of property, seem to have had the scales fall from their eyes, and no longer advocate a 'community of interests.'”
The transition from a radical co-operative colony to a standard real estate corporation reflects the broader tension in Pacific Northwest history between utopian land movements and the relentless pressures of the regional growth machine. Even in the 1890s, the lure of rising property values often superseded the 'community of interests' that drove early settlement.
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