One micro-nation under God. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Leib. And this is Ghost Town.

It was December 26th, 1979 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My hometown as some listeners know when 14-year-old Robert Ben Madison

made the decision to seed from the United States, declaring his bedroom to be a sovereign nation.

He named his new country after the Finnish word for Inside the House, a nod to his home, his safe space.

Madison's mother had just passed away, and he wanted to feel some control and some purpose.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, on that day, right after Christmas, young Robert Madison solidified

his place in cultural history, becoming the young founder of one of the longest standing

and vibrant micro-nations still in existence. The Kingdom of Tulusa. At first, Madison's new

constitutional monarchy seemed cute, a nice way to pass the time, so friends and relatives humored

the young teen by, quote, becoming citizens. Madison also created a flag for Tulusa, a green

color field over a red one. Maybe a nod to the country's founding so close to Christmas, but

I'm not quite sure. Soon after came a seal for his country, that red and Finnish, quote,

a man's room is his kingdom, and a handmade newspaper with Tulusa news and events.

First, Tulusa membership was mostly within the five square miles around Milwaukee's east side,

and eventually members hailed from all over Milwaukee. The most people perhaps assumed

Madison would grow out of his governmental hobby, they were wrong. In the mid-90s, the internet

happened, and Madison made his kingdom a simple website. Because of its digital presence and curious

specificity, the New York Times and Wired picked up on Tulusa, which gave it the publicity that

caught many people's attention. Nothing like this had ever been done before, and this kind of

political social experiment felt intriguing to many, especially given the sifting and

transparency of communities by way of the internet. In April 1996, Madison reestablished

an adjacent project, the League of Sessionist States, an inter-micronational organization

...