History Lounge: Jonathan, Planned City of Tomorrow

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In the early 1970s wealthy Minneapolis businessman, conservationist and state senator Henry McKnight spearheaded a plan to build an experimental community in rural Minnesota. Established in Carver County and named Jonathan after explorer Jonathan Carver, this new town would reflect America’s rising environmental awareness and solve the problems of urban blight--pollution, crime, high prices, sprawl and over-crowding. Launched with great hope in 1970, the community was in foreclosure ten years later. With historian and author Thomas Saylor.