Aurora Colony Historical Society

Aurora, Their Last Utopia: Oregon's Christian Commune, 1856 - 1883

By Eugene Edmund Snyder, Binford & Mort Publishing, Portland Oregon, (1993); 142 pages

Hard Cover $19.95

Soft Cover $12.95

Of all the covered wagon trains that trudged along the Oregon Trail, the most unusual was that led in 1855 by Dr. William Keil, with a corpse pickled in whisky at the head of the procession. Though a fascinating episode, that was only a minor feature of the establishment of Oregon's most famous utopian commune, at Aurora. In this book, we trace the history of that society back to its roots in eighteenth century Europe. There are chapters on predecessor communes at Harmony, Pennsylvania; New Harmony, Indiana; and Bethel, Missouri. Aurora was a community of about 650 people, which flourished until Dr. Keil's death, and whose hotel and restaurant were popular resorts for Oregonians a century ago.

About The Author: Eugene Edmund Snyder is a Portlander whose fondness for Oregon history was stimulated at an early age by stories of ancestors who came to Oregon in pioneer days, some of them in the covered wagon trains of 1855 and 1865 described in this book. He attended Portland schools and holds graduate degrees in economics from the University of California and Oxford University. As a college teacher, he was particularly interested in economic planning, but left that vocation to devote full time to writing. This is his sixth book about Portland and Oregon history.

THE COVER: The painting reproduced on the cover shows an "O & C" railroad train at the Aurora Colony Hotel, for a meal stop. It is a watercolor by Oregon artist Clive Davies, based on photographs taken in the 1870s.