The Walter Millsap papers contains professional and personal correspondence, contracts, financial documents, publications by Millsap, photographs, audiovisual materials, newspaper clippings, and other material regarding Walter Millsap and the Llano Del Rio colony, a utopian society created by Job Harriman that was utilized from 1916-1919. Materials also document the community activism and inventions of Millsap. Topics covered by the collection include philosophical thoughts and theories, patent forms and daily activities in the Llano community.

Walter Millsap was an active member of the Llano Del Rio colony from 1916 to 1919. This cooperative settlement was formed in 1914 by Job Harriman, a lawyer and politician from Los Angeles to provide an economic foundation to the ideas of socialism. Harriman appointed Walter Millsap as head of the Llano Co-Operative Association in 1916. In 1917, the colony experienced a major shortage in water; small rainfall, an insufficient reservoir, and limited rights to water from Big Rock Creek forced the colony to abandon the site and find a different location elsewhere. The colony relocated to Stables, Louisiana in 1917 and renamed the colony "New Llano". When Job Harriman died in 1925 in California, George Pickett stepped in to lead New Llano until it declared bankruptcy in 1936 and fell apart completely by 1938.

9.67 linear feet (17 boxes)

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The collection is open for research.