Estero, Florida -
Failed Hollow Earth Utopia

Failed Hollow Earth Utopia

The people who lived at The Koreshan Unity knew that the Earth is hollow and that we all live inside it. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Almost Utopia

Seven celibate women of the Planetary Court ruled this place of arts and science with finesse. A good site to visit to see how easily we can believe and follow anyone anywhere. [Robert Seidler, 08/20/2011]

Koreshan State Park - A Dopey Utopia

As noted in a previous post, the Koreshan plantation was home to a placid but kooky cult beginning in the late 19th century. Their leader, Koresh (actually named Teed), believed he had changed lead into gold, that god was a woman, that the universe was inside-out with the heavens being a sphere in the center of a concave world. The Koreshanites were celibate -- so no replacements -- and the cult has all but died out.

The park is great and the Koreshan commune buildings are in excellent shape. If walking the amphitheatre, arboretum, and community buildings gets too boring, there is a stream with alligators nearby.

A very cool place to visit and camp. The "tootsie roll" model of the universe is worth the price of admission alone! [M. Salcedo, 08/27/2002]

Theoretical Tootsie Pop Utopia

Koreshan State Park, south of Fort Myers (on the Gulf Coast), Florida, was the site of a religious commune started back in the late 1800's by a physician named Dr. Cyrus Teed. Dr. Teed was a very religious man, who went by the name "Koresh", which is (I believe) a transliteration into Hebrew of his first name.

His colony was into a sort of communal agricultural lifestyle, but the best part is that the people of "Koreshan", believed that the sun was inside the hollow sphere of the earth. Like the chocolate center in a tootsie pop. They developed some rather unique "experiments" to evaluate their philosophy's central concept. The park replicates these experiments, and has an original copy of the model they used to explain their cosmological views to the uninitiated. [Dave Tomasko, 12/10/1997]

[RA: One of many "Dopey Utopias" around the US, Estero, FL was to be the capital city -- a New Jerusalem -- of the Koreshan philosophy. Koresh was buried in an elaborate vault there, but it was washed away by storms. We have a note that the Koreshan Unity Festival is during the second week of April.]