Atascadero Tutors

About Atascadero

The story of Atascadero is a fascinating one. Atascadero tutors tell us that the entire city was a vision of Edward Gardner Lewis.

Lewis originally made a great deal of money through sales of a Missouri based magazine named “Woman’s Magazine.” After this success he continued to focus his attention on publishing operations and built a bigger Press Annex to accommodate the growing business. He bought vast areas of land in St Louis with his profits, which would become the location of today’s University City. In his thirties and forties he continued to thrive in business in the St. Louis region and invest more money into buying parcels of land and expanding his empire in St Louis, he even broke beyond the constraints of the publishing industry and established banks, a university and an arts academy too.

According to Atascadero tutors Lewis was a political activist as well as a magazine publisher. His periodicals were aimed at a female audience, and he developed a sales model to empower his female readers. He created the American Woman’s League (AWL), which gave free membership to its members who sold subscriptions. Membership benefits included pensions and access to higher education. This was incredibly popular and many women worked together to form chapters all across the U.S. At this time the idea of women working was unheard of, so this was a big advancement for women who wanted to mobilize and do something beyond the confines of their home chores and duties. Following on from this success and seeing the enthusiasm of his female readers and sales force, Lewis went further to conceive a parallel organization called the “American Woman’s Republic.” The purpose of this organization was to challenge women to prepare themselves for a future that Lewis envisioned, where women would be able to vote.

Lewis turned his attentions to Atascadero in 1913, hoping to develop a colony there for the American Woman’s Republic. After the land was bought with help from several investors preparations began by planting thousands of acres of orchards and the infrastructure was put into place linking Atascadero to the more developed Pacific coastline at Morro Bay. Naturally with Lewis’ publishing background, it is befitting that the first foray into construction in the area was a print shop. He made sure that the print shop had all of the latest equipment in order to be able to publish as quickly and efficiently as possible. The building still stands today despite sustaining significant damage in the San Simeon Earthquake of 2003. According to the city website, four intricately carved fountains were restored too as part of the recent renovations and once again function as their original purpose as fountains as opposed to planters for which they had been used for many years up until the extensive ten year renovations.