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|elevation_ft = |postal_code_type = |postal_code = |area_code = weblink}}}}Black Bear Ranch is an 80-acre intentional community located in Siskiyou County, California, about 25 miles from Forks of Salmon. It was founded in 1968,BOOK, Miller, Timothy, The Historical Communal Roots of Ultraconservative Groups: Earlier American Communes That Have Helped Shaped Today's Far Right, Kaplan, Jeffrey, The cultic milieu: Oppositional subcultures in an age of globalization, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, 2002, 978-0-7591-0204-0, 49029480, with the watchword "free land for free people". It has been considered by some participants and commentators to be one of the more radical examples of communal living/intentional communities that grew out of the counterculture of the 1960s.BOOK, Malcolm Miles, Urban utopias: the built and social architectures of alternative settlements,weblink 30 May 2011, 2008, Taylor & Francis, 978-0-415-37575-7, 84, Before being converted into a commune, it was a ghost town that had been a gold mining settlement in the 1860s.BOOK, Robert P. Sutton, Modern American communes: a dictionary,weblink 30 May 2011, 2005, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-313-32181-8, 16–17, The commune's legal ownership was held by one resident, Richard Marley,Black Bear Ranch website, Black Bear Family Trust Document until in 1987 it was transferred to the Black Bear Family Trust, which limits development of the property and established trustees to oversee various specified duties. Black Bear Ranch was the subject of the 2005 documentary Commune by Jonathan Berman. The commune still exists today and continues to follow the basic ideals which motivated its founding. At the Summer Solstice Gathering in 2013, there were over 40 residents, the highest population in decades. It is located in a steep pocket valley in the Siskiyou Mountains.WEB,weblink Commune, 26 July 2005, 8 April 2017, IMDb,

Early life

According to the historian Timothy Miller, the community bought the property for $22,500 using money from a variety of sources including from supporters in the entertainment industry, as well as "one large unexpected angelic gift" and the "proceeds from a major LSD deal". The money from the entertainment industry was obtained through what Stephen Holden in The New York Times describes as "emotional blackmail", quoting Michael Tierra:Although they struggled at first due to a lack of planning,Malcolm Terence, Return to Black Bear, The Journal, Humboldt County California. the community at Black Bear Ranch learned to live self-sufficiently, as the ranch was often snowed in for extended periods during the winter months, and was many hours' drive from the nearest city. The residents managed to gather large quantities of food and medical supplies to see them through the winter and were able to treat a variety of illnesses and medical problems onsite, delivering babies and performing veterinary care. The community homeschooled their children, and maintained tools like chainsaws and cars without a need for mechanics. To raise money to pay for food and supplies, they found work fighting fires in the nearby forests.Members of the commune were key organizers of Ent Forestry, a co-operative which took tree planting and forest rehabilitation contracts with the US Forest Service and Redwoods National Park, and provided income to the commune for several years.Despite their remoteness, the community managed to keep in contact with a variety of radical groups including the Hells Angels and Black Power groups.BOOK, Malcolm Terence, Free land, free love: tales of a wilderness commune,weblink 30 May 2011, January 2000, Black Bear Mining and Pub. Co., 978-0-9673242-0-3, 76, There was a tension between those with a radical—even paramilitary—persuasion who wanted to pursue weapons training and possibly harbor radical political fugitivesBOOK, Peter Braunstein, Michael William Doyle, Imagine nation: the American counterculture of the 1960s and '70s,weblink 30 May 2011, 2002, Routledge, 978-0-415-93040-6, 334, and the many pacifists. One of the founders of the commune, interviewed by the University of Kansas' 60s Commune Project and quoted in Miller:Miller also records how "a strong sense of community" including ritual peyote use led to a variety of social experiments being conducted including the abolishing of private property and also the institution of a rule to prevent "coupling," which banned anyone from sleeping with the same partner for more than two consecutive nights, although this had disastrous consequences after a venereal disease spread amongst the community. Despite the ban on coupling (considered "bourgoise decadence"), traditional feelings of resentment came back when they tried to work out who had slept with whom in order to treat the disease:At one point, a group called the ShivalilaWEB,weblink Gridley Lorimer Wright, IV (1934 - 1979) - Find A Grave Memorial, findagrave.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink The Book Of The Mother, Shivalila, 8 April 2017, Internet Archive, WEB,weblink TheLand - Black Mountain, wikispaces.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink Gridley Wright, nndb.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink Califia's Children: Gridley Wright and Shivalila, Michael, Marinacci, 29 October 2014, califias.blogspot.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink Trying To Remember the Family Band - The New York Sun, nysun.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink Shivalila: Social Culture Based on LSD Research, Gridley Lorimer, Wright, 1 January 1978, Children's Liberation Front, 8 April 2017, Google Books, WEB,weblink People v. Wright, justia.com, 8 April 2017, WEB,weblink Casetext, casetext.com, 8 April 2017, BOOK,weblink The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions, James R., Lewis, 1 January 2002, Prometheus Books, 8 April 2017, Google Books, 9781615927388, WEB,weblink Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania on August 19, 2006 · Page 3, newspapers.com, 8 April 2017, Communal – After 1960 - Encyclopedia.com "Shivalila was founded in Bakersfield, California, in the 1970s by Gridley Lorimer Wright IV (1934-1979)." became part of the commune until they were forced to leave by the other members. The New York Sun describes them as a "nomadic cult of acid-taking, baby-worshiping hippies looking for the perfect place to bring up children" and they were led by a man called Gridley Wright.James Bowman, Trying To Remember the Family Band, New York Sun.Very few rules were ever adopted by the community. As Malcolm Terence notes: "Anarchists are good at lots of things but making rules isn’t one of them." After a hepatitis epidemic, they banned sitting on the kitchen counter, and they also banned turning the handle on the cream separator "because it used to drive people crazy when people would sit in the kitchen and play with the handle on the cream separator".

Life today

Life at the ranch continues on, with similar struggles about what communal living means as took place during the early days. The rules have grown into a set of "Traditional Guidelines" which try to ensure "the continued existence of Black Bear Ranch and its tradition of communal living in a way that cares for and nourishes each other and the environment".Black Bear Ranch website, Traditional Guidelines Decision making by the group is managed through weekly 'Circles'.In April 2017, the ranch made news when 15-year-old Tennessee student Elizabeth Thomas and her convicted kidnapper and former teacher Tad Cummins were found in a cabin in Cecilville, CA near the ranch after a month-long interstate manhunt.WEB,weblink Black Bear Ranch: Details on commune where Cummins, Thomas stayed, WKRN web staff, 2017-04-20, WKRN.com, 2017-04-20, They had stayed for two weeks at Black Bear Ranch but were asked to leave, after which they moved into the cabin.WEB,weblink Tad Cummins arrested, Elizabeth Thomas rescued at California cabin, WKRN web staff, 2017-04-20, WKRN.com, 2017-04-21,

See also

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• Anti-globalization movement
• Beat Generation
• Cannabis culture
• Counterculture of the 1960s
• Food Not Bombs
• Freak scene
• Hippie
• Indomania
• Pacifism
• Sexual revolution
• Simple living
• Summer of Love

{{div col end}}

References

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• {{Citation |publisher = Times Change Press |isbn = 978-0-87810-530-4 |title = January Thaw |author = Blue Mountain Ranch Commune |date = December 1974 |oclc = 979434 |id = 0878105301 |ol = 8114859M }}

External links

• Black Bear homepage
• digital story reflection by an early resident

{{Siskiyou County, California}}{{Co-operatives |types}}{{hippies}}{{simple living}}{{Sexual revolution}}{{Youth Empowerment}}{{drug use}}