Where are the hippie towns?

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by iamriversong

Thanks, baba_yoga - I guess I am looking for a smaller town. I have friends in Port Townsend and they love it and I've always loved it as well. I just don't know how to find a job in a small town where I'm not located. And I agree, almost would have to live wherever I can find work. I was hoping for a place with the feel of "old Seattle" but I don't know where that is. Right now, life seems to be about readjusting my expectations. I'll keep on searching.

Tacoma probably will give you the feel of "old Seattle". At least it's changing very slowly and a lot of people are put off by the old reputation.

[nanhowie]

I moved to a hippie culture in Woodinville, WA, which had a strip club and other amusements years ago. Over the course of 40 or so years, the town was turned into a "family town", strip club gone, and I am still here because of the gorgeous property we bought. The $29,500 3 acre place is now worth $1,500,000 or more, but the city has lost its character. One reason is that the City Council is so fascist, it has innumerable reasons why we can't sell our place. People from the outside came here and redirected our "goals". That would mean more and more college students graduate with "city planning degrees" and our city was stupid enough to hire them. They make up so many rules that you can't even sell your property without some enormous fee tacked on by the city. In our case, it was a $400,000 fee to widen our road which is quite wide to begin with. I know it is hard for a first-time buyer to know all the rules that will eventually be pinned on to their property.

[Jiff]

Back in the 60s and 70s Woodinville did host a lot of hippies that attended the big-name concerts at Gold Creek Park, including the three day Seattle Pop Festival in '69, two weeks before Woodstock, with the Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Byrds, Santana, Guess Who, etc. Music most every weekend. I made it there once. Ste Michelle patrons? What a difference.

In the nineteenth century Washington was seen as a good place to go to establish cooperative communities. Communal hippie-like pioneers, called utopians, came from far and wide and established several of these associations or "colonies". They had community property, free love, nudity, and included anarchists, communists, food faddists, free thinkers, nudists and others who did not fit in with mainstream society. The first colony, founded in 1887 at Ennis Creek, pretty much put Port Angeles on the map.

The Home Colony, near Lakebay, was started in 1896 on 26 acres of waterfront property purchased for $182 by members of a failed "industrial cooperative" colony near Eatonville. Home expanded to over 200 residents and lasted twenty years, longer than most colonies. Another was at present-day Burley.

After the 70s, I don't think hippies have had much of a presence in Washington. I know people that live off-the-grid and barter near Colville, where there are several others doing that.

I know a few young hippies live in Whatcom County. You'll see several playing and dancing at the annual Subdued Stringband Jamboree near Deming.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by 007jamesbond

Vashon Island for sure.

Yes, home of the pot growers alliance is about the last hippie place in the state. Port Townsend used to be that way but though still an artsy area, it has become more hipster than hippie. There are still many pockets of hippiedom but they are in fairly secluded rural areas, mixed oddly enough with redneck and survivalist types (such as outside of Deming).

[homesinseattle]

Vashon can still feel that way, though rising prices are forcing some out. I lived there 1997-2000 and still have good friends there. It is a wonderful, amusing place. You have trust fund kids who are now organic farmers, people literally living in teepees and treehouses.

[evilcart]

Definitely the Eastside of Seattle, is the hippie center of coolness!!!! Hold on, sorry I mean the epicenter coldness.