Mulligan came out of this "controlled bank run" with a considerable amount of funds, all of which he converted either to [[gold]], to raw [[land]], or to various foodstuffs, seed grains, and livestock. The land was in a secluded valley in the [[Rocky Mountains]] (probably in [[Colorado]]). As Midas told the story later to [[Dagny Taggart]], he bought the land, built a house on it, and stocked it with provisions sufficient to last one man a lifetime. This was in accord with John Galt's original strike plan: that those who could, would retire to live off their savings; the rest would take the lowest jobs that they could find, barely enough to afford them housing and food.
Midas did not remain isolated for very long. [[Judge Narragansett]] asked him for a lease so that he could build a house of his own in the valley. Midas was glad of Judge Narragansett's company, and agreed. The two then invited [[Richard Halley]], the [[music]] composer, to come as well. At about this timefirst, these men lived off the land; Mulligan raised [[wheat]] and [[tobacco]], the judge raised [[chicken]]s and managed a herd of [[dairy]] cows, and Halley grew fruit trees. Whatever the men could not produce for themselves, Midas would acquire through a secret channel that the novel never explains. Eventually, John Galt made a radical proposal: to build a powerplant based on his electrostatic motor, to provide the valley with electric power. Midas granted John Galt enough leases for the powerplant and a house that Galt himself might build. Galt did as he promised: he built an electrostatic powerplant, which he housed in a building secured with [[sound]] [[lock]]s. Above the front door of the plant, Galt carved the following oath:{{cquote|I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}
The sound locks would open to the sound of any voice reciting that oath—but anyone desiring entry would have to recite it slowly and with the inflections that alone would indicate sincerity—in other words, that the speaker meant it.
The novel does not state specifically when this community got its name. John Galt always referred to it as Mulligan's Valley. Other residents called it [[Galt's Gulch]]. ([[Dagny Taggart]] called it by another name: [[Atlantis]], the name of a mythical "lost city" in the [[Atlantic Ocean]].)
The composer [[Richard Halley]], and [[Hugh Akston]], a [[professor]] of [[philosophy]], also asked for leasesa lease. More strikers followed. But because Midas required each one to pay a rent for the use of his land, eventually the strikers sought to build an economy in the valley. [[Francisco d'Anconia]] opened a [[copper]] [[mine]] in the side of the mountains that ringed the valley. When Francisco needed start-up capital, Midas reopened his bank and made him a loan.
This prompted [[Ragnar Danneskjold]] to make another proposal. Ragnar Danneskjold had decided to operate as a [[privateer]], to recover some of the substance that the [[United States]] government stole from the strikers by seizing certain "relief" cargoes that the government would try to send from time to time to various "People's States" in Europe and elsewhere. Now Ragnar proposed to deposit the proceeds from his activities in Midas' bank, so that anyone joining the strike, or likely to join the strike, could receive back all the [[income tax]]es they had been forced to pay since the strike began. Midas obliged Ragnar by opening accounts in the names of all the strikers, plus all those on a long list of prospects that John Galt and Francisco d'Anconia drew up and maintained. ([[Dagny Taggart]] and [[Henry Rearden]] remained on that list until the last year of the strike.) Midas also opened a mint and issued gold and silver coin, the only currency that the valley residents would accept.
The collapse of the economy of [[Colorado]] following the Fair Share Act and other burdensome laws and regulations caused the development of the valley to accelerate. [[Ellis Wyatt]], [[Andrew Stockton]], and many other businessmen/inventors came to the valley and carried on the same activities they had carried on outside. A contractor named Richard McNamara laid two hundred miles of water mains and power and telephone lines, opened a telephone exchange, and functioned as the valley's utility provider.
At some point in the community's history, John Galt and Midas Mulligan discussed an obvious need. Mulligan's Valley would require concealment from a society that was growing more desperate and more tyrannical with every passing year, or even with every passing month. (The demonstration of [[Project X]] probably surprised no one in the valley when it occurred.) John Galt invented another solution. He installed a series of directed-energy projectors at an elevation of 8700 feet, 700 feet above the ground level of the valley. These projectors would create a screen of "refractor rays" that would create project a false image of a one-way mirror in the sky and make the valley all but invisible of jagged rocks to any pilot looking down on it from above, thus making the real valley all but invisible.
== The scab ==