The Koreshans brought culture and industry to Southwest Florida. They owned and operated many businesses in the Historic Settlement, including a machine shop, general store, bakery, post office and school. For more than a quarter century, Koreshan State Park and Friends of Koreshan have offered guests a view of the life and times of Dr. […]
On an autumn evening in 1869, while experimenting with a mysterious force called electricity, 30-year-old Cyrus Teed had a vision he would later call his Illumination. The spirit of God came to him in the form of a beautiful woman in gold and purple robes who carried the Mercury’s Caduceus. This “God-spirit” told Teed the […]
Dr. Cyrus Teed (AKA Koresh) envisioned his Koreshan Unity would someday have ten million members, and Estero Florida would become the capital of the world. Painter and sculptor Moses Weaver, a unity member, created a painting of Teed’s vision of a New Jerusalem, which now hangs in the Art Hall. In the painting, there are […]
The seven women known as the Seven Sisters ran the day to day business affairs of the Koreshan Unity in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At this time in history, women were not involved in business, but Koresh (Cyrus Teed) believed in gender equality and placed these women in positions of authority. The Seven […]
The Koreshan Laundry House was built in 1903 in the Industrial Area of the park, where the entire settlement’s laundry could be washed and dried in only one day (11 hours). All of the Unity laundry was done at the laundry house. There were between five and seven staff members. The laundry building contained three machines. […]
Why Dr. Teed believed the Earth was hollow and we live inside it. THE KORESHAN WORLD Beliefs, about the nature of God and the nature of the Universe, were very important to the Koreshans in later years. Their vision of the world is a set of religious/pseudo-scientific beliefs put forth by Dr. Cyrus Teed, founder […]
Cyrus Teed, who would later become the founder of the Koreshan Unity, was eleven and had only completed eighth grade when he dropped out of school to work as an Erie Canal hoggee (mule wrangler/driver) to help support his family. Since Teed’s parents were Baptist and he was a natural orator, when he was older […]
Gustave Damkohler, born 1825 in Blankenburg, Germany, was the first homesteader in Estero in 1882. He farmed along the Estero River, then known as “Mosquito Creek,” and used the river to ship his harvests and goods north through the Gulf of Mexico. Damkohler was a remarkable man. He invented a fireless cooker (heat stove), gathered […]
The Koreshans believed celibacy was the “scientific” way to attain eternal life, but the practice was not mandatory. Members could also leave the Unity if they changed their minds about marriage and family. For example, Empress Victoria Gratia, Dr. Cyrus Teed’s female counterpart, left the Unity and attempted to form her own commune. Two years […]
In 1894, something extraordinary was happening along the banks of Mosquito Creek in what is now known as Koreshan State Park. Dr. Cyrus Teed had sent down the first group of his followers from Chicago to clear land and begin building what would be the foundations of his vision of a religious-utopian community called the […]
