My fascination with the benefits of co-ops was piqued back in college during the 1980s where I learned about the amazing results achieved by the Mondragon Corporation in Northern Spain. Launched in the 1950s by a Catholic priest, that cooperative network now has well over 200 worker-owned co-ops, has its own retirement program, its own banks, and health care system.

Then, six years or so ago, while researching for my book, Champions for Zion, I was amazed to learn that a similar cooperative community was established here in Utah back in the 1860s. The man who was responsible for the planning of and settling of over 500 communities in the Western United States, Brigham Young, challenged Lorenzo Snow to build a self-sufficient community. Snow then gathered some Scandinavian immigrants and founded Brigham City. Over the course of 10 years, Snow directed the creation of some 40 cooperatives. According to the central co-op's board of directors, the town achieved 85% self-sufficiency, producing most of the residents' consumer goods locally.

The miracle of that achievement lay in the results of the 1873 Panic & world-wide depression. That year, because they were self-sufficient, Brigham City had its best year of growth ever! When I learned that, and while watching some of my neighbors lose their homes to foreclosure and unemployment, I wondered, "Why don't we build towns like that today?". Now I'm thrilled to be helping do just that!