With its history of blending cultures and accommodating newcomers willing to take the place on its own terms, New Mexico has long tolerated outsiders and refugees from mainstream America. The state’s reputation as a Bohemian haven dates back at least to the artist colonies and literary circles of the early 1900s, when painters and authors seized on New Mexico as a place where they could shuck cultural bonds, try on new identities, and experiment with new artistic and social paradigms.

No wonder the counterculture movement of the 1960s expressed itself here in full-throated chorus. “[New Mexico] had a reputation as being an arty, spiritual place,” said one hippie habitué. By the late 1960s, according to one count, the state had 25 communes, and perhaps another dozen alternative communities.

At the Woodstock festival, in 1969, the Hog Farm’s Hugh Romney, aka Wavy Gravy, took the stage and announced the group’s commune in Llano, near Peñasco. After that, New Mexico became a mecca for hippies seeking a place to “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” in the immortal words of Timothy Leary.

El Rito was the perfect place for some of those of the counter-culture.