Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Owen, Albert Kimsey.
- Abstract:
- This collection consists of papers related to Albert Kimsey Owen, the rise and fall of the Topolobampo utopian colony in Sinaloa, Mexico (1886-ca. 1903), railroad development, and Owen's survival of the wreck of the Vera Cruz in 1880. The collection also includes a diary, newspaper clipping scrapbooks, and notebooks of Owen.
- Extent:
- 6 boxes
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection consists of papers related to Albert Kimsey Owen, the rise and fall of the Topolobampo utopian colony in Sinaloa, Mexico (1886-ca. 1903), railroad development, and Owen's survival of the wreck of the Vera Cruz in 1880. The collection also includes a diary, newspaper clipping scrapbooks, and notebooks of Owen. There are also some later notes and correspondence of Professor George Renner related to the disposition and custody of Owen's papers in the 1940s-1950s.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Albert Kimsey Owen (1848-1916), born in Chester, Pennsylvania, son of a Quaker physician, was a utopian reformer and founder of a co-operative community in Topolobampo, Sinaloa, Mexico. By profession Owen was a civil engineer. He went to Colorado to survey a railroad route, then on to Mexico to help lay out what was to become the Mexican Central Railroad. Upon first seeing Topolobampo Bay in 1873, Owen's dream was to found the perfect city, a colony based on cooperative principles, complete with workers, artisans, and intellectuals, to be supplied by a railroad line from the United States, with entry at El Paso, across the Sierra Madred mountains, to the Bay of Topolobampo. Since this would be the shortest route to the Pacific from the great industrial cities of the United States, he envisioned Topolobampo as a center for the Pacific trade.
- Acquisition information:
- Purchased from George Renner, January 1983.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
- Location of this collection:
-
1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA 91108, US
- Contact:
- (626) 405-2191