A "FREE" 25 x 100 foot lot in beautiful Fruitvale Michigan to anyone attending the Land Exposition in Chicago, was the offer that thousands excepted for a better life. In reality, although the lots where there, the ones sown to the new owners were the same ones shown to someone else. Most Chicagoans who obtained a lot, never went to see it, or only went once. Thousands of the lots reverted back to the state for delinquent taxes, thus started the Fruitvale controversy that still appears from time to time in the news, even one hundred years later. The idea behind the land development by founder Harrison M. Parker, was for the owners of the lots and five and ten acre "Chickens and Cherries" farms, was to grow crops and raise chickens for the Chicago market. This idea soon fell apart, as the new lots owners only wanted free land, and not to become farmers. The Rochdale Inn, started early on as a place for new land owners to stay while the looked over their holdings, became the focal point of the development, both for vacationers from Chicago, and as a recreation spot for the locals. Over the ensuing years, Fruitvale was often in the news due to the activities of its founder and the many legal battles that he fought over his co-operative life style movement that entangled thousands of mid-westerners and brought in millions of dollars in questionable funds. It all came to a conclusion when Harrison Parker, while acting on his own behalf, lost his case before the U. S. Supreme Court. This book is a special 100th anniversary edition of the original book released in 1989 as a best seller. Some corrections have been made, along with the addition of color images and maps.
