Antelope, Oregon

Antelope, Oregon was the location of the Religious Cult Rajneesh. They were here in the early to mid 1980's. Its citizens and leaders were responsible for launching the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, as well as the planned 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. The community where they lived was called the Big Muddy Ranch and In 1996, Washington donated the ranch to Young Life, a Christian youth organization. Since 1999, Young Life has operated a summer camp there, first as the WildHorse Canyon Camp, later as the Washington Family Ranch. I had an awesome time talking to Paul who is one of the residents of Antelope and he covered a lot of the Rajneesh movement as a photographer. Spent a couple of hours chatting with him and he showed me a bunch of pictures he took during that time.

Paul bought this old catholic church and converted it into his house. He brought me inside and he still has some of the pews here and also has converted the confessional into a closet.

This is the old school and it's pretty much abandoned other than once a month when the town uses one room for a community gathering.

This is one of the buildings moved from the big muddy ranch that someone in town purchased.

This use to be a little general store on the right and a bakery on the left. The general store closed, and the bakery took over that area and then the Rajneeshee moved into the left side. Because of all of the issues with the Rajneesh people stopped coming to the bakery and they ended up going out of business. Toward the left back corner of this building use to be the original post office and it was moved also because of the Rajneesh.

If you're ever out this way check out this almost Ghost Town. If you would like to go out to the original Rajneesh site travel east out of Antelope and the first dirt road you come to on your right is the correct road. Drive down this road until you reach the fork in the road (it's a while and beware of cattle because it's open range here) and go left. This will bring you into the old Rajneesh site. If you want to learn a little history on the Rajneesh cult you can always watch the Netflix documentary called "Wild Wild Country."