Fascinating. Are there other examples of industrialists from that era building their own towns? I know I have heard of some, but none come to mind right now.
Paranapiacaba, a railroad village at the end of a major inclined place railroad overcoming the coastal range, close to Sao Paulo: https://goo.gl/maps/hE5X7sVhZ4K2
Brazilian Meat Company (today Frigorífico Anglo) in Barretos, the first cold-storage slaughterhouse in Brazil: https://goo.gl/maps/hWuQPGwViF32
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/01/post_89.html
A similar kind of thing is currently happening up in Vermont, where someone is trying to build a utopia for Mormons:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-newvistas-mormon-uto...
The Wikipedia entry says the city "was exceptionally rare as an example of a town fully planned under government supervision. This is unlike 19th century privately funded company town examples found in the United Kingdom, such as Port Sunlight, or in the United States, such as Pullman, Chicago."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_City,_Nevada
The thing that fascinates me about company and government towns is the rules the residents ended up having to follow. In Boulder City, no drinking, prostitution or gambling. In Saltaire, UK, no hanging washing on a line, or "Gatherings or loitering of more than eight persons in the streets".
http://www.saltairevillageexperience.co.uk/rules-for-living-...
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/familistere-de-guise (There's no article in the English Wikipedia but you can try for the French one)
The factory featured a pre-Edison hydro-powered dynamo and was the second place in the world to have electric lights: http://www.edisontechcenter.org/Dolgeville.html
This article suggests that he was forced into bankruptcy by his creditor-peers, who feared his socialist business practices would ruin the system that enabled their wealth: https://upstateearth.blogspot.com/2011/02/downfall-of-alfred...
Interestingly, when he was run out of New York he founded a second utopian company town in Los Angeles (Alhambra) but with less success: http://articles.latimes.com/1993-05-31/local/me-41998_1_alfr...
Company towns were so common that Sinclair Lewis used them as a foundational element in The Jungle.
Wills wanted to build the perfect automobile which had to be built in the perfect town by workers who could walk to work. Having lots of money he bought some farmland near Port Huron, Michigan and created the town of Marysville.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marysville%2C_Michigan
Unfortunately Wills was a far better engineer than a business person. The car, the Wills Ste Claire, was quite innovative but he eventually went broke.
http://uniquecarsandparts.com/images/lost_marques/Wills_Sain...
There's an outstanding museum in Marysville featuring the car. My father restored a Wills Ste. Claire and it was always his favorite.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Old-coal-mining-towns-of-Ap...
http://www.hersheypa.com/about_hershey/our_proud_history/abo...