![]() Around a bend in the road was the main office and beyond that was an expansive collection of buildings that house almost 9,000 high school and middle school students over 12 weeks each summer. Thankfully, the road turned back into asphalt upon entering the core of the property where there’s a large sign and an air strip, installed by the Rajneeshees. Some 500-600 head of cattle roam the property. This is arid hill country, marked with sagebrush, juniper and bunch grass pocked with basalt canyons and overseen by volcanic plugs from a past age when Oregon was far more geologically active. Once the road enters Ranch property – about four miles in – it improves a tad and there are plenty of signs to guide the driver past multiple curves as vista after vista opens up. From a paved state road, one turns south onto a bumpy gravel road past several farms. On a foggy spring morning, it took me an hour to drive the 32 miles from Fossil, the nearest sizable town. It’s run by the Colorado Springs-based youth ministry Young Life. It opened 20 years ago this month, and anyone can visit. It still stands as the largest terrorist bioweapon attack on US soil.Īs reported in a 2018 Netflix original documentary Wild Wild Country on the place, the site eventually became a Christian camp called the Washington Family Ranch. The latter incident, which involved salmonella sprinkled into the contents of several local restaurant salad bars, didn’t kill anyone, but 751 people were poisoned, and 505 people filed claims against the cult. The place cratered because of the paranoia of its leaders, the spending habits of the guru and wild (and illegal) schemes like wiretapping, immigration fraud and poisoning the residents of The Dalles, Oregon. ![]() ![]() It was named after Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the infamous “sex guru” and spiritual leader from Pune, India, who formed a city-state in central Oregon. At the time, I was reporting on an infamous cult that had taken over this isolated country, calling it Rajneeshpuram and flooding central Oregon with thousands of saffron-robed disciples.Įverything within my eyesight was once called Rancho Rajneesh, a 64,229-acre spread bought for $5.75 million on July 10, 1981, then put up for sale in 1985 as state and federal officials were closing in on the place. A gravel road winding through Oregon’s high desert may not look like much today, but back in 1982, this 15-mile highway was world-famous.Ī lot had changed since I’d driven this way as a reporter for a small newspaper based near Portland, Ore.
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