LLANO DEL RIO is located on State Highway (SH) 138, 20 miles east of Palmdale. Here in 1913 Job Harriman, a political activist, and avowed socialist, purchased an old temperance colony site, and sold shares for a cooperative venture to prove to the world that true socialism could work. Shares were sold for a dollar each, and enough people purchased them, so in October 1913, the Llano del Rio Company was incorporated. By May of 1914, Llano del Rio's colonists began to build stone cabins with canvas tops, large barns and a beautiful rock pillared wooden hotel.



Within 18 months, 500 people lived in the self-sufficient colony. However not all was rosy. Water supply problems affected crops, the state dogged Harriman, and friction in the community threatened the very harmony of the colony.



By 1917 most colonists had left, and in 1918 Harriman lost Llano del Rio to bankruptcy. The Utopian Socialism experiment failed. Today the rock walls of a dozen structures, including the old hotel, mark one of the most unique ghost towns in the country.