Travel Guide Rugby

A little lost southwest of the Big South Fork National River and Recreational Area, Rugby is a charming place that includes about fifteen buildings built at the end of the 19th century. It is a small corner of paradise that deserves a detour and a stopover of a few hours. On October 5, 1880, British author and social reformer Thomas Hughes fancifully inaugurated the Rugby colony. He imagined this new place as a place where those who wanted to could build a strong farming community through cooperative enterprise, while maintaining a Christian lifestyle without the rigid class distinctions that then prevail in Britain. Very quickly, settlers flocked from all over and, in 1884, Hughes' vision seemed close to becoming a reality. Nearly 70 Victorian buildings are being built on the site, allowing more than 300 residents to enjoy the idyllic lifestyle of this "New Jerusalem". However, in 1881, a typhoid epidemic killed seven people and tainted the image of the colony. To this are added very quickly financial and land ownership problems. It is a rapid decline, which unusually harsh winters will make irreversible. Hughes, ruined, died in 1896 and, in 1900, most of the first settlers left the community. However, Rugby has never been abandoned. The last residents, their children and some of the children of the first settlers who left the city struggled for many decades to preserve the heritage of the site. Today, of the fifteen or so remaining buildings of the time, it is mainly a few houses, the church and the library that are to be discovered during one of the guided tours organised daily by the Visitor Center.Namely. For GPS that do not recognize Rugby addresses, remember to indicate Elgin as the reference city. You should also know that Rugby is located at the limit of two time zones (Eastern Time Zone and Central Time Zone).