Droppers: America's First Hippie Commune, Drop City

by Mark Matthews

Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. In popular imagination, these words seem to capture the atmosphere of 1960s hippie communes. Yet when the first hippie commune was founded in 1965 outside Trinidad, Colorado, the goal wasn’t one long party but rather a new society that integrated life and art. In Droppers , Mark Matthews chronicles the rise and fall of this utopian community, exploring the goals behind its creation and the factors that eventually led to its dissolution. Seeking refuge from enforced social conformity, the turmoil of racial conflict, and the Vietnam War, artist Eugene Bernofsky and other founders of Drop City sought to create an environment that would promote both equality and personal autonomy. These high ideals became increasingly hard to sustain, however, in the face of external pressures and internal divisions. In a rollicking, fast-paced style, Matthews vividly describes the early enthusiasm of Drop City’s founders, as Bernofsky and his friends constructed a town in the desert literally using the “detritus of society.” Over time, Drop City suffered from media attention, the distraction of visitors, and the arrival of new residents who didn’t share the founders’ ideals. Matthews bases his account on numerous interviews with Bernofsky and other residents as well as written sources. Explaining Drop City in the context of the counterculture’s evolution and the American tradition of utopian communities, he paints an unforgettable picture of a largely misunderstood phenomenon in American history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Reviews

[annika burman · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5

As someone super interested in intentional living communities and communes, the subject matter here was engaging and entertaining. I enjoyed the brief forays into the history of communes in the United States, and the connections Matthews drew between the problems faced by Drop City and the problems faced by other communes. The writing was straightforward and objective (although writing based on the accounts of a somewhat unreliable narrator), but Bernofsky, the founder of Drop City, was such as interesting character that I was eager to learn more about his life. The pictures were a nice touch, and added legitimacy to their construction work as described in the book. Unlike other communes and hippies, it seems the original residents of Drop City genuinely worked really hard and were mostly sober. The domes they built were impressive, and their commitment to chaotic art pure-hearted.

I recommend this to someone interested in communes and the hippie movement.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this book in a museum store during a recent visit to Trinidad, CO, near where the Drop City community was located. I've long been interested in intentional communities, and so picked it up. The author based the book on multiple interviews with those who had been the community's leaders.
Unlike many such communities, this one didn't want to make the world a better place or follow any particular set of beliefs. Good news: they welcomed everyone, shared food, and came together to build shelters for newcomers, free of charge (because they had scrounged building materials unwanted by anyone else). Bad news: they engaged in theft of supplies and food when necessary and practiced illegal drug use. The all-male leadership treated women as inferior. Basically they just wanted to live apart from mainstream society (this was the Vietnam era) and create art.
Included in the narrative are descriptions of a few other communities and of the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. All of this, along with how Drop City was founded, functioned for several years, and then disintegrated, made for intriguing reading.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been said that the hippie era had a dubious influence on American culture. But if anything positive came from it the promotion of spontaneous and individual creativity must be recognized. Hippies challenged paradigms of thought and conformity, used creative means to make art and life a meaningful gesture. For this I applaud. Communes were adventurous episodes in hippie life, and this book celebrates one of them, the first one according to the author.

[Jill Frederickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to me for the detail on zome and dome building. It disappoints me that most communes seem to exist and thrive for such short periods.

[Emily Newhall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thesis….very good book. Non fiction and still enjoyable???? Incredible.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now, I'm grateful for the focus of this book (I've long been fascinated by the idea of Drop City and went to the T.C. Boyle novel for precisely that reason), but this sure is one very peculiar piece. Oddly, Boyle hinself is dismissed as a hardfaced neoconservative whose account is - er - fictional (yet it did a better job of spotting hubris and cosmic posturing than the non-fiction did).

Peculiar too as it has virtually no sources besides Bernofsky (who comes across as a self-mythologising tool). With a primary source as unreliable and vain as him, any account is going to be tough going. I loved how the failure of the house comic was put down to an unwillingness to 'do the commercial bullshit'. Peter Rabbit sounds delusional too.

The device of beginning chapters with 60s newsheadlines also felt, well, just odd and borders on 'filler'. And our trip to early American religious communes - interesting, but way off topic.

So, a truly odd book. Like the zomes, mind.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three stars off. For all its good points a couple of editorial errors threw me into a fit of cynical smirky laughter when I got to a certain page. The Merry Pranksters may have held a dozen or more Acid Tests, but they only held ONE "Acid Test Graduation" event. And most of us around in the era will remember the SF Mime Troupe manager who went on to fame and glory as a rock concert promoter as BILL, not "Phil" Graham. Historical revisionism does not work when so many remember the era more accurately, despite the stupid cliche "if you can remember the sixties you weren't there."
Actually if you can't remember the sixties, you probably did nothing worth remembering back then, or you weren't even born yet. Mathews gets my goat here because he calls the Sixties "an embarrassment." I don't know what he's talking about, since I personally don't feel like apologizing for the 60's (or 70's) about anything I did, myself.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells about an arts-focused commune that originated outside Trinidad, Colorado in 1965. The author conducted extensive interviews with (among others) the founder, Eugene Barnosky, who is kind of a bs-er, but very interesting. The strongest parts were the descriptions and photos of building the geodesic and other types (geometry is not my friend) of domes that housed the community, and frequent excerpts from Time magazine that provided historical context. I also liked the synopses of other communes that formed during the era. As all good communes seem to do, this one eventually disintegrated because of differing viewpoints of how it should operate.

[Missy · Rating 1 out of 5]

blah.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

LATWIDNO