Utopia, Ohio Facts for Kids

Melting snow, Utopia, Ohio, photographed by Arthur Rothstein, 1940

Location of Utopia, Ohio

Utopia is a small, unincorporated community located in southern Clermont County, Ohio, United States. It sits right along the Ohio River. Even though some people call Utopia a "ghost town", people still live there today.

History of Utopia
Geography
Gallery
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History of Utopia

Early Settlements and Ideas

Utopia was first started in 1844 by people who followed the ideas of Charles Fourier. He was a French thinker who believed in creating perfect societies, which he called "utopias." These followers had tried to build a similar community before, but it didn't work out. They named this new place "Utopia" because they hoped it would be a perfect society.

Within three years, this first community broke apart. However, the land was soon used again by Josiah Warren. He wanted to create a small, cooperative town where people could still trade and live like in the outside world. This new community used a special economic system where people traded goods based on the amount of work it took to make them.

The First Group of Settlers

The first group of Fourier's followers believed that the world would eventually enter a very long period of peace. They thought that to become truly wise, they needed to live together in special communities called communes. These families paid $25 a year to live in Utopia. In return, each family received a wooden house and a small piece of land.

The Second Group of Settlers

Later, the land was sold to John O. Wattles. He was the leader of another group of people called Spiritualists. Locals warned Wattles about the river, but he and his group decided to move their main dining and town hall building closer to the river. They moved it brick by brick. This move was finished in December 1847, just days before one of the biggest floods of the 1800s.

The Great Flood of 1847

On the night of December 13, the Ohio River overflowed its banks. The water rose very high and got dangerously close to the town hall. Many people were seeking shelter in the hall because their own homes were already flooded. A party was happening in the hall that evening. Suddenly, the powerful river, which was many feet above its normal level, washed away the south wall of the building. A large number of Spiritualists were swept into the water. Some people survived, but most drowned or became too cold in the icy river.

Rebuilding and New Ideas

After the flood, the settlement was reorganized in 1847 by Josiah Warren and his friends. This new community was based on the idea of individual freedom. To join, you had to be personally invited by one of the first settlers. Warren believed that the most important freedom was "the liberty to choose our associates at all times."

Land was not owned by everyone together. Instead, people owned their own plots of land. They could buy and sell these plots at their original cost. The community's economy was based on private ownership and a market system where the value of goods and services was based on the work put into them. People traded using special "labor notes" instead of regular money. By the mid-1850s, Utopia had about forty buildings, with half of them being for businesses.

The community slowly faded away due to the American Civil War, rising land prices nearby, and the rule that new members had to be invited. However, even in 1875, some of the original settlers still lived there. Some businesses in the area still used labor notes. By this time, the area was known as Smith's Landing.

Josiah Warren left Utopia a year after it started to give talks and help set up other communities. But he did visit Utopia sometimes. After his last visit in the winter of 1855-1856, he wrote:

My visit to that little germ of Equitable society, now eight and a half years old, has given me higher hopes and expectations than I had before dared to entertain. It is not the display that the little group of buildings makes to the eye ... but knowing the means by which these ... have been acquired, and seeing that there the subject of Equity has had eight years and six months deep study and practical trial, and that from the beginning ... the subject had lost nothing with those who first took hold of it ... but had gained ... from year to year in their highest judgement and affectionate regard.

Geography

Utopia is located on the northern bank of the Ohio River. It is in the very southeast corner of Clermont County, in southwest Ohio. The community is found along U.S. Route 52.