 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.Before being converted into a commune, it was a ghost town that had been a gold mining settlement in the 1860s.The commune's legal ownership was held by one resident, Richard Marley, 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.