Home, Washington
Home was founded as a utopian colony for anarchists when three veterans of a similar failed colony called Glennis purchase 26 acres of land and moved their families to the site on the Key Peninsula near Puget Sound. Two years later, in 1898, they established a Mutual Home Association for the purpose of buying additional land for new members. Title for the land would remain with the Association, although later in 1909 that would change.
Home rapidly became a community of anarchists (supporters of self-governed societies) and they were soon joined by others attracted by the voluntary nature of compliance with social mores. Nudists were common in the community, as were freethinkers and communists. When President William McKinley was assassinated the killer was a confessed anarchist and the uproar over the third President being murdered in office in less than forty years drew increased attention to Home.
In 1902 an anarchist newspaper published a story about free-love in Home which prompted the United States Post Office to close the Home Post Office. Public outcry in neighboring communities again placed the community under scrutiny, and its reputation for being seedy and undesirable grew. Under increased pressure from outsiders members of the Association broke into disagreeing factions over Home’s management.
Nude swimming was illegal in Pierce County, where Home was located, but there was no restriction on it within the community itself. When a member of the community reported other members swimming nude to the county authorities, other members defended them as being within their rights. A nude vs. anti-nude debate broke out in home, gleefully reported in newspapers outside of the community. Meanwhile nationwide anti-anarchist factions were gaining steam in the aftermath of events such as the Hay Market Riot in Chicago.
As the community debate increased it became clear both inside and outside that the colony was far from being a united utopia. Both sides of the debate over nude swimming, and public nudity in general, claimed to be anarchists, but it was clear that their support of the anarchist movement applied differently on certain moral issues. That and the outside pressures condemning all members of the community for living in an immoral manner brought it to a close. The Association dissolved itself in 1919. Today Home is a census designated place of mostly beach houses.