№3 Wild Wild Country
How a tiny town became the subject of worldwide headlines
This week has been busy. Between tending to important family matters and delivering jobs for my commercial photography business, there has been little time for research and photography for this project. Nonetheless, I spent one day yesterday on the road researching, learning, and photographing. I’ll share a small story from that a little further down.
One of the more interesting projects that kept me busy this week, which I can discuss, was a video recording of a conversation with Senator Ron Wyden about artificial intelligence hosted by AI Portland. The discussion was wide-ranging, hitting all the buttons, from the need for privacy laws to healthcare, big tech, and other consumer protection aspects. If you want to hear what Senator Wyden thinks about AI and all these issues, tune into the video here. Excuse the wobbles; I was operating on a less-than-shoestring budget.
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On Wednesday, I got up early and drove 377 miles into central Oregon, visiting seven small post offices. That’s a lot of driving, and I’ll have to rethink that as I progress on this project. One consideration that I care about a lot is good light, which I prefer in the early morning and late afternoon. It would have been preferable to stay the night in the area and split my visits to the post offices into segments.
When most people think of Oregon, they think of lush, temperate rainforests soaked in eight months of rain. However, large swaths of this state are covered in semi-arid steppe dotted with ponderosa pine. It’s the place where there are more cows than people. Besides wheat farming, wind energy farming has become a growing industry for those living here.
Antelope, Oregon, and the takeover by the Rajneesh movement.
In the early nineteen eighties, the Rajneesh movement, with its charismatic leader Bhagwan, later known as Osho, descended on the small town of Antelope to establish an ashram called the Rajneeshpuram on a 65,000-acre piece of land, the Big Muddy Ranch. Bhagwan had difficulty finding suitable land in his homeland of India for his vision of a Shangrila, and it was decided that America could offer a home for his visions of a utopian society. The 2018 Netflix 6-part limited series Wild Wild Country details what conspired at the Ranch and nearby Antelope.
Fairly soon into establishing a city of 10,000 Bhagwan followers, conflict broke out between the locals and the newcomers building the city on the old ranch. The Christian conservative residents of the town looked at the Rajneshees with suspicion and disapproval of their new-age way of life. The Rajneeshes resorted to several unsavory tactics, from taking over the city government and officially renaming the town Rajneeshpuram to carrying out biological attacks on the county’s residents to preventing them from voting in the local election. The postal service never acknowledged the town’s name change and continued to refer to Antelope, Oregon, in all postal matters.
After numerous years of worldwide attention, Antelope slipped back into obscurity after several criminal investigations, including attempted murder, immigration fraud, voter fraud, and currency and drug smuggling.
Today, the ranch is home to an evangelical youth organization called Young Life that hosts summer camps on the property.
The Antelope post office is the same as during the tumultuous Bhagwan years. The building is featured in the first episode of the Netflix documentary. Today, the town is back to its small population of 37.
Recently, the small guest cottages that the Rajneeshees built on the ranch have been relocated right next to the post office. They now serve as overnight shelters for the numerous cross-country bicycle riders who make Antelope a stop on their coast-to-coast bicycle adventure.
One of the two political signs that I spotted in Antelope. Both were in support of Kamala Harris.
The above picture was taken on State Highway 218 between Antelope and Fossil. For approximately 30 miles, I did not encounter another car or person. It’s truly Wild, Wild Country out there.
Photographic Dispatches From the West is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
