Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the cited page scans. Historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
Extensive Advertising of Lee County Through Koreshan Effort.
A city publishing house with all the latest machinery for the finest printing and binding, in such an apparently out-of-the-way place as Estero, can only be accounted for on the basis that Lee County offers some kind of inducements to the printing firm which even Chicago could not do. The printing and publishing establishment at Estero was located in Chicago where, for many years, its owners conducted a large printing business in addition to issuing books, pamphlets, and periodicals of the Koreshan church and society. It was the intention of the Koreshans to make Estero their headquarters ever since the colony was started here in 1894. For ten years everything was made to bend to this end, and last fall the opportunity presented itself, and the entire Institution, with all its equipments of machinery and departments of industry, was removed to Estero, and work looking to the rapid development of the town began in earnest. The extensive plans laid out are merely foreshadowed in the incorporation of Estero, which seems to have been the talk of the County for many weeks since it was first proposed.
The Koreshan Unity has been publishing continuously for the past eighteen years. Let us briefly inquire what it may mean for Lee County. During all these years, these people have been spreading some kind of information concerning themselves and their beliefs and plans, and some kind of impression has been made wherever their publications have gone. It cannot be doubted that tens of thousands of people know of them and their work. For ten years Estero has been advocated as the coming Koreshan City.' There is a phase of mental agitation resulting, and many are turning interestedly toward the publishing center. Various parts of the nation have been sown down as it were, with their literature, and in years to come the seed sown is likely to produce fruit. Eighteen years’ work, it may be safely said, is not thrown away.
Now, whatever results are realized from these years of effort will necessarily contribute to the upbuilding of Estero in Lee County, which is now the center of agitation along the line of Koreshan questions. Hundreds of thousands of people, as the years go by, will be informed that there is such a place as Estero, such a county as Lee, such a fruitful and health-giving state as Florida; and the people reached by the Koreshan Unity will come to learn of the immense advantages of Southern Florida, as they are now set forth in the publications emanating from Estero. The Koreshan Unity is a church and society, having membership in various parts of the country; and it is expected that the converts to the system will ultimately adopt the life set forth and come to headquarters and take up their residence in the new town, and engage in the various industries now existing and in prospect.
The Koreshans have in operation a system of propaganda of their doctrines. There are societies, representatives, and agents, who make it their business to distribute the printed matter relative to the theory of the System and the practical workings of the colony. Lectures are delivered, and every year thousands of sample copies of their magazine are scattered throughout the country. Every issue of their magazine, every book, pamphlet, leaflet, circular, letter-head and envelope mailed at Estero has the address plainly printed on it. Print the name of this place often enough in connection with sufficiently interesting events and subjects, and Estero will become a name familiar to everybody; and make the name familiar enough, and thousands of people will seek to take advantage of the opportunities promised and afforded by Lee County in general and by Estero in particular.
At the printing house at Estero a sixteen-page weekly magazine, called The Flaming Sword, is issued; it is printed and folded on new machinery, and presents a neat appearance. On the staff of the magazine are a number of literary workers of years of experience, and the publication is attracting considerable attention in educational circles. Some very fine work is done on the Unity presses—one piece of work being the edition de luxe of The Immortal Manhood, a book of 200 pages, printed in three colors throughout. The typographical work embraces some original features, and the press-work is excellent, the
Inland Printer making favorable comments on the work.
Estero is bound to bring to Lee County an immense amount of advertising, and we are of the opinion that the people of Lee County will welcome it. The character of the Koreshan work and influence is not such as to attract the vicious which usually constitutes a source of trouble in city building. A large number of articles concerning Estero have already been printed in the daily press, and a number of the articles are going the rounds in the weekly press of the country. The reporting staff of the Koreshan Unity has recently closed deals on matter to be published in a score or more of Sunday papers and a large number of weekly publications and magazines. The opportunities have come through the news which went abroad concerning the incorporation of Estero.
On the strength of the general demand for articles by Koreshan writers on subjects relative to Estero as a town of extraordinary territory, with unique plans for its government and maintenance, a Bureau of Publicity is in process of formation at Estero, and the best writers of the system, both here and abroad, may be engaged. This means the institution of a syndicate of writers for the preparation and publication of articles throughout the country. Estero, Lee County, and Southern Florida are to be special subjects—of course in connection with the religious and economic system which is promulgated from this center.
If such a syndicate is formed, something concerning Estero will be in process of publication at all times. Such an effort will unquestionably give Estero an impetus; and it seems to us that whatever benefits a town generally and particularly in a county, will inevitably benefit the County and State as well. One thing is certain, the Koreshans have never said anything bad about Lee County, and whatever they say about it in the future will be in the interest of the development of this part of the state of Florida.—VERITAS, in Ft. Myers (Fla.) Press.
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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. 36 · 14 Feb 1905 · PDF pp. 13–14