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Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the cited page scans. Historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
Estero Expands Under Legal Incorporation to a Municipality.
Estero, Florida, as a regularly and legally incorporated town, is a surprising reality. It enjoys the distinction of being the largest town ever incorporated in the history of the world, containing as it does, vastly more territory than any other municipality of its' class. The announcement of these facts will doubtless surprise and delight our friends scattered throughout the world. Locally, the first notices posted in Lee County, giving notice of the first steps in the direction of the incorporation, created great surprise—and withal, needless excitement and alarm. It has been said that the people of these parts were stirred as they were never stirred before.
Notwithstanding all of the excitement and the numerous endeavors to prevent the actual incorporation, Estero became a municipality September 1, 1904. This marks one of the greatest epochs yet reached in the history of the development of this part of Lee County; for we have now a town duly incorporated according to the laws of the State of Florida, with legal power vested in its officers to enact and execute municipal laws in agreement with the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States of America, and the laws of the State of Florida.
Results of the Convention at Estero.
The statutes of the State of Florida provide that twenty-five registered voters in any vicinity not already incorporated, may take steps to incorporate a town, and in compliance with all the requirements, upon vote of the majority in the territory desired to be incorporated, the municipality may become a reality. In the territory of nearly four townships, including Estero Bay and Islands and portions of the mainland, the Koreshans are in the majority; and in order to incorporate their own properties in this part of Lee County, and to provide territory for rapid and orderly growth and development of Estero, the municipal boundary embraces about one hundred and ten square miles. The area of Estero may be appreciated when we say that the District of Columbia contains only about sixty square miles, a little more than one-half the area of Estero.
Those who have access to township maps of Florida may lay out the boundary of the newly incorporated town, by following the description published in The Flaming Sword during the past six weeks. The approximate shape of the municipal territory may be seen by laying out lines on a definite scale to represent miles, as follows: Beginning at a point representing the northeast corner of the town, run west twelve miles; thence south four miles; thence a little south of southeast, ten miles; thence east one mile; thence north two miles; thence east five miles; thence north five miles to the starting point.
Of all this territory, about eighty-two square miles are on land, and about twenty-eight square miles are on water; and all of the territory is incorporated except about 700 acres belonging to property owners opposed to the incorporation. The territory of the opposition is thus 700 acres, a small amount compared with the 70,000 acres embraced 'in the limits of the town. The municipal boundary includes all the waters and Islands of Estero Bay, and nearly all the lands belonging to the Koreshans in this part of the county, aggregating about 7,500 acres, or about eleven square miles. The most of the other lands in the limits of the town belong to land companies, from whom we expect to purchase thousands of acres in the future.
The government of the town of Estero is regularly incorporated according to the laws of the State of Florida. The notice published for several weeks in The Flaming Sword, and also duly posted as required by law, was a call to a convention of registered voters residing in the territory named. Such action was taken at the convention as to make the holding of an election possible as required by the statutes; and at the election the incorporation carried unanimously, there being none of the dissenters present; after which twelve officers were unanimously elected, as follows: Mayor, Charles Addison Graves; Clerk, Henry D. Silverfriend; Marshal, Charles H. Hunt; Aldermen: John S. Sargent, W. Ross Wallace, Thomas P. Gay, James H. Bubbett, Moses G. Weaver, George W. Hunt, Rollin W. Gray, Elum C. Miles, and Samuel Armour—the aldermen to serve one and two years according to determination by lot. W. Ross Wallace was chosen President of the Board of Aldermen.
Factors of Success and Omens of Peace.
At the convention and election marked order prevailed. Every voter present was a Koreshan; not one non-Koreshan voter in the territory of Estero was present. There was no opposition of any kind manifest at the convention, and all elections were unanimous. We discuss the character of the opposition to the Koreshan movement in the direction of the incorporation before the time of the convention, in the Editorial Department of this issue, from both legal and moral points of view. In the successful work of the incorporation of Estero, much credit is due to Mr. Frank C. Aiderman, Attorney and Counselor-at-Law, of Ft. Myers, Florida, whose excellent legal talent, foresight, and promptness permitted him to leave nothing undone that was necessary to the facility and correctness of the proceedings of the day.
In this connection we desire to express our appreciation of the very courteous manner in which the Editor of the Ft. Myers Press has treated our numerous articles on Estero during the past several months; and especially for the space granted us for treatment of the question of the incorporation and the opposition. The series of articles concerning the development of the Koreshan work at Estero still continues in the Press. We are informed by the Editor of the Press that quite a number of readers of The Flaming Sword have subscribed for his paper, and doubtless many more will desire to know from its columns concerning the many advantages and resources of Lee County. In recent issues of the Press, the news and discussion concerning the incorporation of Estero have filled considerable space; and from evidences which have come to us, we are led to believe that the people of Lee County, as well as other parts of the State and nation, have been intensely interested in the surprising developments at Estero.
A description of the corporate seal of Estero may be interesting to many of our readers. The outer circle contains the words, “ T o w n of E s t e r o , L ee C o u n t y , F l o r id a .” The emblem of the seal is comprised of a picture of the sun rising in the center, from the sea horizon constituting the horizontal diameter of the circle. In the foreground is a swan swimming*in the water, symbolizing immortality, by reason of its being the highest type of waterfowl, and therefore representing transition from one sphere of activity or life to another. From the center are radiating the rays of the morning. A laurel wreath surrounds the picture, and at the top appears a large six-pointed star; and circling between the star and the sun are the words, “ T h e G u id in g S t a r C it y .”
The Surprising Expansion of the Koreshan Unity.
The advantages of the incorporation of Estero to the Koreshans and other people of this vicinity are obvious. In the founding and maintenance of the municipality we generate and cultivate a public spirit. As a movement, as a town, as a center of the Koreshan Cult, we become more widely known. We extend inducements for industrial activity and commercial relations with the world, and open up avenues for the inflow of material wealth. It gives the Koreshan movement a necessary aspect and assurance of permanence, of stability, and insures confidence of those who accept the Koreshan System and desire to become directly related to it in its practical success in the maintenance of its people and the promulgation of its science, and in the up-building of its City.
During the past several months the material interests of the Koreshans have grown immensely. We are making extensive preparations for immediate development and progress in all lines. We have the foundations for numerous important industries, with the resources and products of which the local demand will have very little to do. Expansion is the policy of the Koreshan movement. Since our removal from the North, extensive purchases of properties and lands 'have been made— about 4,000 acres lying along Estero Bay and River; the San Carlos Hotel, on Pine Island, with additional property between the Hotel and San Carlos Bay, including wharfs and all rights to local waters.
We are not dependent upon the sparse population of this part of Lee County, nor upon the towns and villages of this section of the State; and we do not desire to create the impression that we will in any way endeavor to injure the industry of any of our neighbors, but to promote the welfare of this portion of the County and State. The resources of our printing and publishing interests will come from all parts of the nation; we will build boats for the use of peoples on all shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea; we will construct engines and machinery for use wherever portable power is desired; our soil will produce substantial support for the thousands of our people; we will attract to Estero the most progressive and cultured people in America and the world; and the Koreshan University will become universally known. All this should prove a boon, not a detriment, to the people in the vicinity of Estero.
The unbounded wealth of Florida, the location of Estero on the great tropical peninsula in close proximity to the great water-ways of the world, together with the powerful impulse of the Koreshan System given to a people zealous in the promulgation and exemplification of its principles, insure the greatest future for Estero, which now begins as a municipality on no mean nor small scale. The time is at hand when able-bodied and whole-hearted Koreshans in various parts of the country must come to their Headquarters for the up-building of their City, in fulfilment of their hopes.
Let the hundreds and the thousands become receptive to the forces of Koreshan attraction, in willingness to endure the temporary privations of pioneer work, that soon the name of Estero and the System it represents may become famed for manifest Koreshan ideals and practical achievements. We are at the beginning of our final triumphs. We need hundreds of strong-bodied and strong-minded men and women to help promote the material interests of the Koreshan Unity.
The Character of the New Municipality.
The new municipality, with its government and business-like conduct of affairs, will constitute a school of social and political economy to our people, both old and young. It is useless to look for genuine and lasting reform in the corrupt elements of present large towns and cities. The true method is to found a city in which the elements of righteousness will prevail from the beginning. We begin at once the practical application of the principles of municipal ownership of public utilities and industries, from the proceeds of which the expenses of the municipality will be paid without resorting to taxation of the resident population. No officer of the town of Estero is to receive any salary, hence no inducement is offered for corruption in the municipal government.
All forms of vice common to large towns and cities are forever excluded, through prompt preventive measures taken by the first and newly elected officers. No saloon, gambling den, house of ill-fame, distillery, nor brewery will ever be permitted to operate in Estero; but on the contrary, everything that promotes health and wealth of mind and body, both vidual and corporate, will be encouraged.
It has been said that the Koreshans are dreamers; it must be admitted that they have achieved some practical things. We have high ideals, which are necessary to great achievements. Many peoples struggle and expend a great amount of means and force to accomplish something—and fail, because they have no definite ideals, no conceptions of orderly success, no science of achievement. The Koreshan Unity has succeeded against all odds from the initial stages of its founding. The Communistic Homes of Koreshanity have existed continuously for the past sixteen years; the Society Arch-Triumphant is still an active body of members; the Koreshan University is incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois; the Koreshan Unity, representing the secular interests of the movement, is duly incorporated, with large capitalization, under the laws of the State of New Jersey, involving large personal properties and real estate; and now the town of Estero, the largest municipality that ever sprang into existence in a day, is a fact, with elements that will ultimately crown our endeavors with far-famed success.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical’s report without presenting its historical claims as independently established.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 18, No. 14 · 13 Sep 1904 · PDF pp. 12–14