Touring the Koreshan Village

Thursday we took an "official" tour of the Koreshan Village within the park we are staying.  Neil & Kat had never seen it and we had only wandered around ourselves before, so this was quite educational.  We had a terrific tour guide who had lots of stories to share, beginning back in the late 1800s in Chicago.  Cyrus Teed, later known as Koresh, formed a commune called the Koreshan Unity, first in New York, then Chicago, and finally they moved their "home" to Estero, Florida where they purchased land and established a community of "believers".  Between 1903-1908, there were over 250 residents, and according to stories over 4000 additional believers around the country.  Teed's goal was to establish a utopian city of 10 million, but when he died in 1908 his community of believers began to die off as well.  There was a bakery, a printing house, a general store, and a power plant as well as cabins and larger homes for the leaders of the community.  Some of those have been preserved by the state of Florida.  This "Koresh" is not to be confused with David Koresh who was the leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas prior to the siege in 1993.  Both men took their name from the Bible, but that is as far as any connection goes.

The staircase shows the craftsmanship of the workers who helped build the village. 

This was the residence of the 7 women who were Cyrus Teed's appointed leaders of the community.