press burned down in 1949. It also published the American Eagle, which began in 1906 and later became a horticultural newspaper. Followers The last remaining follower, Hedwig Michel, joined in 1940. She had learned of the Koreshans in Germany, and fled Nazi persecution. She ceded the main portion of the commune grounds to Florida to form a state park in 1961. The Koreshan State Park (now known as the Koreshan State Historic Site) was opened in 1967. Hedwig Michel continued to live in the building known as the "Planetary Court". She died in 1981. She is the only Koreshan buried within the park. Two other Koreshan cemeteries are nearby, one of which lies within a gated community and the other on land owned by the Audubon Society. Partly due to the Koreshan belief in a form of reincarnation, little, if anything, was done to care for these cemeteries. The only permanent grave stones were put in by family members. College The College of Life Foundation, formerly the Koreshan Unity Foundation, is now the owner/caretaker of the remaining Koreshan land and the extensive archives. After Michel's death, control of the Koreshan Unity Foundation passed to her secretary, Jo Bigelow, and most recently another individual, Charles Dauray. None of those controlling the College of Life Foundation are Koreshan believers. Footnotes Further reading Adams, Katherine J. Life Inside the Earth: The Koreshan Unity and Its Urban Pioneers, 1880-1908. MA thesis. Florida State University, 2010. Brumann, Christoph. "The Dominance of One and Its Perils: Charismatic Leadership and Branch Structures in Utopian Communes," Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 56, no. 4 (Winter 2000), pp. 425–451. Fine, Howard D. "The Koreshan Unity: The Chicago Years of a Utopian Community," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 68, no. 3 (June 1975), pp. 213–227. Landing, James E. "Cyrus Reed Teed and the Koreshan Unity," in Donald E. Pitzer (ed.), America's Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010; pp. 375–395. Mackle, Elliott. "Cyrus Teed and the Lee County Elections of 1906," Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 1 (July 1978), pp. 1–18. Rea, Sara W. The Koreshan Story, Koreshan Unity Foundation, Inc, 1994. Rosenthal, Odeda. Hedwig Michel: The Patron Saint of The Koreshan State Historic Site, Koreshan Unity Foundation, Inc, 1992. External links Koreshan State Historic Site, official web page. Unofficial Koreshan State Historic Site, unofficial web page. Koreshan Historical Collection, Digital Collection