Morningstar Commune facts for kids
Morningstar Commune (also known as Morning Star Ranch and The Digger Farm) was a special kind of community in the 1960s. It was located on open land in rural Sonoma County, California, near Occidental. It was part of the counterculture movement, where many young people explored new ways of living together.
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A Special Community in the 1960s
Morningstar was a key part of the changing society of young adults in the 1960s. Many people traveled between San Francisco's famous Haight-Ashbury area and Sebastopol. Morningstar became a regular meeting place for these travelers.
What Was Morningstar?
One of the founders, Louis Gottlieb, had a special idea for the ranch. He called it LATWIDNO, which stood for "Land Access To Which Is Denied No One." This meant that anyone was welcome to come and live on the land. The idea was that if no one was told to leave, the land itself would help decide who belonged there. This way of life at Morningstar lasted for a few years, from 1967 to 1972.
Challenges and Changes
The local government in Sonoma County eventually had concerns about so many people living on the land. They tried to stop people from living there, saying only Gottlieb's family could stay. The county even used bulldozers to remove structures on the land three times. Louis Gottlieb faced difficulties because he believed in the idea of open land and did not make people leave. After these challenges, Morningstar Commune stopped existing by 1973.
Some members of the commune moved to Taos County, New Mexico, in 1969. This new location was sometimes called Morning Star East. It was later turned into a farm.
Morningstar's Legacy
The name "Morningstar" lives on today. It is the name of one of the buildings at Twin Oaks Community. Twin Oaks is a modern community in Virginia with about 100 members. All the buildings at Twin Oaks are named after older communities that no longer exist.
Ramon Sender has also written about Morningstar. He is collecting stories from people who lived in these "Free Land" communities to document their history. His work is called "Home Free Home."
Louis Gottlieb was also a founding member of a folk music group called the Limeliters. When the group reunited in the 1970s, they sang a song about what each member did while they were apart. The song mentioned Louis Gottlieb's time at Morningstar.
The 2003 novel Drop City by T.C. Boyle tells a fictional story about a commune that shares many similarities with Morningstar. In 2008, a play about the Morningstar Commune also opened in California.
