Lost City is located in the California foothills in Calaveras County and was constructed in the late 1870's as an Icarian commune. It is speculated that the goal of the community was to, as its founder Etianne Cabet expressed, "determine the best system of political happiness of the human race." By 1896 the settlement was abandoned and today only a few walls of the original dozen or more dry-laid fieldstone buildings remain. Photographed 03/08