Whose Home Is This?

An Oregon county grows restless over a guru's recruits

Where once only sagebrush and tumbleweed dotted dull gray desert, a modern hotel ($94 a night), a 4,300-ft. airport runway, a two-story redwood shopping center and strings of small wooden houses now adorn the hills. A sophisticated sewage-treatment plant draws raves from visiting experts, and wildlife officials marvel at the increase in birds that breed in the long-barren acres.

Throughout the incorporated city of Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon's Wasco County, young followers of the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh bustle about their business. The Bhagwan,...