The City of Rajneeshpuram

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Rajneeshpuram was a city incorporated in the state of Oregon, USA between 1982 and Dec 10, 1985. Its incorporation was subject to fierce legal battles.

The 2,135 acre city was located on the site of a 64,229-acre (260 km2) Central Oregon property known as the "Big Muddy" ranch, which was purchased in 1981 for $5.75 million by the Chidvilas Rajneesh Meditation Center. The ranch's hills and rivers descended west to east from a high point of 1,446 meters to a low of 427 meters.

Within three years, the commune turned part of the Ranch from an empty rural property into a small city. Two of the three incorporated parcels - now named Desiderata Canyon and Gautam the Buddha Grove - were largely left for future growth. Housing and community facilities were concentrated in Jesus Grove, the largest of the three units. Rajneeshpuram by late 1983 included a two-story shopping center, hotel, counseling center/administrative building, warehouse, heavy equipment building, Rolls Royce garage, service station, 1,300 m airstrip, a public transport system using buses, dining hall, a vast 8,200 m2 meeting and meditation hall named Rajneesh Mandir, A-frame housing, and manufactured modular housing.

Outside the city limits were new check dams to guard against flash floods, a large water storage reservoir, and a sewage reclamation plant sufficient to deal with thousands of visitors during annual summerfestivals. Population has been estimated at 200-400 in the fall of 1981 and at 2,000-3,000 by 1983 and 1984, although the large numbers of short-term and long-term visitors make any estimate difficult. The first World Celebration in July 1982 brought 6,000 or 7,000 visitors. World Celebrations in 1983 and 1984 brought as many as 15,000 visitors.

The Rajneeshpuram post office had the ZIP code 97741.

The city's mayor was David Berry Knapp (Sw Krishna Deva).






references
1) A Passage to America, Max Brecher
2) Utopia and Bureaucracy: The Fall of Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, Carl Abbott
3) Rajneeshpuram criminal trial documents
4) Archives West
see also
Rajneeshpuram names
Rajneesh Foundation International
Wild Wild Country (2018) - A six part miniseries about Rajneeshpuram
USDCHS - Wild Wild History (2019). Panel discussion of the US District Court Historical Society, with Sw Prem Niren, streamed live on Jun 27, 2019 from Portland.
Rajneeshpuram (2012) - A one hour documentary by Eric Cain, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)
Rajneeshpuram in the Wikipedia
Google map coordinates : 44°49'54.00" N, 120°29'5.74" W
Jean-Pierre Laffont Photo gallery of Rajneeshpuram
Incorporation of Rajneeshpuram opens door to development (part 9 of 20 from the Oregonian's Osho retrospective series of the late 2010's)