Alva Review-Courier -

NEW LLANO, La. (AP) — A little-known experiment in early 20th-century American socialism played out a century ago in this rural Vernon Parish community of 2,400, the memory of which is being kept alive at a tiny museum here.

The Llano Colony, which turned into one of the most enduring of socialist "utopian" communities formed in that era, got its start in sunny southern California in 1914. But three years later, a lack of water and other challenges drove its relocation to an abandoned lumber town in western Louisiana, on the edge of Leesville.

The colony was an initiative of a socialist moveme...