UTOPIA is a Greek word for an imaginary place where everyone and everything is perfect. In the early 1890’s, this was an attractive society in America and resulted in the creation of model communities within the greater society and there were a lot of Utopian Experiments. One of the more interesting ones, was started in the Pacific Northwest.

Three men, George Allen, Oliver Verity and B.F. O’Dell founded their own utopian dream in Washington State after being a part of a previous attempt of a utopian society. They left Glennis, Washington and bought some land off of the Key Peninsula and founded a society with absolute freedom and rejection of their contemporary values. In 1896, the utopia called Home, Washington was born and became known as an anarchist city.

Home started out with the three founders and grew into a group of over 600 at one point. After seeing the growth of Home and seeing what they had gone through as a community it seems like you would be able to call it a successful experiment. However a well-known sociologist Rosabeth Kanter argued in her 1972 book, Commitment & Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective, she argued that the internal characteristics of a utopian community lead to its success or failure. Kanter defined a “successful” commune as one that lasted for longer than thirty-three years.

There a a few stories that make Home, washington stand out from other utopian experiments during that time. For example, Home gained the attention of it’s neighboring large cities in 1901. Not in a good way though.

Going back to Rosabeth Kanter’s keys for a successful utopia, she said the generation had to be passed on, and last at least 33 years. Another story I like to come out of this Anarchist Utopia is the story of Donald Vose.

Most people have never heard of Home, Washington or the stories that stemmed from there, at the time he wrote his book, there were only three other recorded accounts to help research Home. The normal way my interviews with authors tend to go, I find interesting stories about the research DURING the writing of the book, but in this case, Justin had connections AFTER the book was published that add to the overall experience of the history.