© Max LondbergOn a recent day, an East Wind guitarist sang, “That I am me, and you are you my friend. Your mind creates all that you see.”
Decades later, the East Wind community is the largest it's ever been, with 73 members sharing more than 1,000 acres.
But despite a long history in this county on the Arkansas border, where Trump received 80 percent of the vote, East Winders are outsiders.
The Ozark locals regard them with a sense of suspicion and sanctimony.
Peggy Williams, 44, who was raised and still lives in this county, said those at East Wind "don't bother nobody."
"Least they're not going out killing people, least I know of," she said before pausing. "Might be a pile of dead bodies back there."
Other rumors past and present hold that East Winders, wearing dark cloaks, perform rituals to drink the blood of babies; that they engage in weekly orgies; that they are all bound for eternal damnation.
"I know they all run around naked," one man said nonchalantly while pumping gas at Tecumseh's only station.
Betty Killion, a grandmother and frequent churchgoer, believes East Winders lead immoral lives.
"From what I hear, they're way off the grid from being Christians," she said.
East Wind lies at the end of a two-mile gravel road off a winding highway. Many Ozark locals can give precise directions to its entrance, but considering how few of them drive down it, the road may as well stretch hundreds of miles.
Into the wild
Signs of the community emerge on either side of the road, in pockets amid the dense wood: a cluttered mechanic shop, an office building, an old outbuilding where they make rope sandals.
On the road, people pass by on foot and on bicycles.
On a recent day, Deborah Slavin stood on a cabin porch in the summer heat, gripping a can of beer snuggled in a koozie. Nearby, another East Winder, his shirtless torso bearing intricate tattoos, strummed a guitar.
People milled about before dinner, waiting for a meal of tilapia, cheesy potatoes and granola.
Slavin, 65, is a commanding presence in the community - the person many come to with questions.
The last of the original 16 founders of East Wind still here, Slavin now has snow-white hair and wears dangling earrings and a flowing skirt. In her spare time, she takes cha-cha lessons from another member, a strapping man about half her age with braided hair.
Though it's been more than 40 years since she gave up college to help launch the community, the matriarch maintains a sprightly nature, especially when it comes to Trump, socialism and the Ozark locals.
She called Ozark County the "most backward, hillbilly Republican county in the state."
Since 1888, just two other presidential nominees received a higher percentage of support from Ozark County than Trump did in November: Republicans Herbert Hoover in 1928 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944.
To Slavin, Trump's rise was further evidence that the socialist principles championed at East Wind could never take root on a broader scale in America, "the belly of the capitalist beast." Such knowledge disheartens her.
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