a different sort of company town

Thanks to an Ole connection at NPR: a story about Holden Village.   (With links to slide show and you-tube)

Of interest to us, why?

First because the facilities (buildings, road, etc.) were constructed as a company town by Howe Sound Mining so there is a bit of a tie in with our consideration of Pullman, IL.   This little town was isolated in a way that Pullman was not.   Many miles up-lake from Chelan, Washington, it is located in Railroad Creek Valley, but there is no train.  About 11 miles down the road, on the lake shore, there was another little settlement not owned by the company and a much shorter walk toward the wilderness a 'sub-division' of houses built by married workers.  The single miners all lived in dormitories provided by the company and the management families lived in houses also provided by the company.  There was a bowling alley, a gym, a pool-hall, a short-order restaurant, a school, a hospital.  At miners' reunions, the folks who were kids there report mostly pleasant memories.  The company seems to have had a more modest social agenda than Mr. Pullman.  It closed the town when the price of copper fell.

Second because the retreat community that occupies the site, while not a company town, does shape its members' values and practices thereby accomplishing the sort of goals Pullman had, though not precisely the same values and practices that he promoted.  Indeed, he might have found the Holden sort of community unnerving.  It is hardly a utopia, but its scale allows attention to the infrastructure of water, electricity, sewer, and human relations that we seldom have time for or access to in our ordinary lives. 

Third because this article describes how the on-going efforts to clean up the mining residue from the first community is effecting the current community.