Rajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.
The city was located on the site of a 64,229-acre (25,993 ha) Central Oregon property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, which was purchased in 1981 for $5.75 million ($14.3 million in today's dollars). Within three years, the neo-sannyasins (Rajneesh's followers, also termed Rajneeshees in contemporaneous press reports) developed a community, turning the ranch from an empty rural property into a city of up to 7,000 people, complete with typical urban infrastructure such as a fire department, police, restaurants, malls, townhouses, a 4,200-foot (1,300 m) airstrip, a public transport system using buses, a sewage reclamation plant and a reservoir. The Rajneeshpuram post office had the ZIP code 97741.
Within a year of arriving, the commune leaders had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use. Initially, they had stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community, their land being zoned for agricultural use. But it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure and services normally associated with a town. The land-use conflict escalated to bitter hostility between the commune and local residents, and the commune was subject to sustained and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents over the following years.
The city of Antelope, Oregon became a focal point of the conflict. It was the nearest town, located 18 miles (29 km) from the ranch, and had a population of under 50. Initially, Rajneesh's followers had only purchased a small number of lots in Antelope. After a dispute with the 1000 Friends of Oregon, an environmentalist group, Antelope denied the sannyasins a business permit for their mail-order operation, and more sannyasins moved into the town. In April 1982, Antelope voted to disincorporate itself, to prevent itself being taken over. By this time, there were enough Rajneeshee residents to defeat the measure. In May 1982, the residents of the Rancho Rajneesh commune voted to incorporate the separate city of Rajneeshpuram on the ranch. Apart from the control of Antelope and the land-use question, there were other disputes. The commune leadership took an aggressive stance on many issues and initiated litigation against various groups and individuals.
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