As a young girl, Katherine Westcott (later Tingley) dreamed of leaving New England to build a White City in the golden West. Nearly 50 years later, in 1897, Tingley was presiding over the Point Loma (California) Theosophical Colony, where she sought to lead humanity—which had been "hemmed in by the false teachings of the past"—on the path toward truth and light.

The West was immensely attractive to people like Tingley, whose ideas chafed well-churched eastern and midwestern communities. Freethinkers established western settlements, including Liberal, Kansas, and a few institutions, like the short-lived Liberal University in Silverton, Oregon. Socialist utopias sprang up in California and the Puget Sound. New Thought, an offshoot of Christian Science, found footholds in Los Angeles, Denver, and Kansas City.

The most successful religious experiment by far was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), which began with the visions of New York native Joseph Smith. Smith and his ...

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