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Atascadero is a city in San Luis Obispo County on California's Central Coast, founded in 1913 as a utopian planned colony by magazine publisher Edward Gardner Lewis.

Lewis bought the 23,000-acre Rancho Atascadero for $37.50 an acre and celebrated the purchase on July 4, 1913, planning a model community of 30,000 residents.

The colony's first settlers lived in a 'tent city' while Lewis's experts surveyed and subdivided the land, planted thousands of acres of orchards, and built the first road through the Santa Lucia Mountains to Morro Bay — today's Highway 41.

The centerpiece of the colony was an Italian Renaissance-style administration building, completed in 1918, that later served as Atascadero City Hall and the historical museum and is now California Historical Landmark No. 958.

Lewis went bankrupt in 1924, and development of his dream colony stalled for decades during the Great Depression.

Atascadero did not incorporate as a city until July 2, 1979 — a full 66 years after its founding.

The 2020 Census counted 29,773 people in Atascadero — nearly the 30,000 residents Lewis envisioned more than a century earlier.

Atascadero has about 11,579 households averaging 2.52 people each, with about 65% of homes owner-occupied and a median home value of about $716,500.

The city is home to the Atascadero State Hospital, whose establishment brought many new jobs to the community.

Downtown Atascadero is known as the Colony District, and roughly 300 of the original Colony Homes built under Lewis's plan still stand.