Further · 1964 → ∞
The living archive of Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters & the bus called Furthur.
The 1964 bus trip, the Acid Tests, Kesey’s life and work in Oregon, and the bus’s 2026 move to San Francisco: people, places, events and works tied to the open records libraries use, plus a catalog of interviews, archives and primary sources that link back to where they live. Where accounts differ, we show them side by side. Were you there? We’d like to hear from you.
The art behind this card is computed live in your browser from fractal mathematics — Julia sets, Mandelbrot and Burning Ship zooms, Newton fractals — with fresh random parameters and colors on every slide, so it never repeats.
Summer 1964
The original Pranksters: who was on the first bus
Fourteen people left La Honda aboard Furthur in June 1964, and a fifteenth joined in Canada. Meet them by the names they went by — and see where the sources disagree about who was really aboard.
- The Chief
- Sir Speed Limit
- Intrepid Traveler
- Stark Naked
- Hassler
- Sometimes Missing
- Generally Famished
- Dis-Mount
- Gretchen Fetchin
- Mal Function
- Hardly Visible
- Zonker
- Brother Charlie
- Highly Charged
- Anonymous
See the full roster, the trip at a glance, and the disagreements →
“I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.”
“There’s only one bus, just like there’s only one Starship Enterprise.”
Start here
Ken Kesey
American writer and countercultural figure (1935–2001)
23 interviews · 21 sources · 3 archives
Neal Cassady
American writer (1926–1968)
5 interviews · 3 sources · 2 archives
Ken Babbs
American novelist (born 1936)
5 interviews · 1 source
Acid Tests
LSD experiments/parties in the 1960s
4 interviews · 5 sources · 2 archives
Merry Pranksters
Followers of Ken Kesey
16 interviews · 10 sources · 2 archives
Furthur (the bus)
Ken Kesey's Merry Band of Pranksters' 1960s hippie-bus
5 interviews · 8 sources · 1 archive
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
1968 book by Tom Wolfe
2 interviews
Magic Trip
2011 American documentary film
2 interviews
Browse the collections
People
23 + 43 widerPranksters, poets, musicians, promoters and chroniclers.
Events
3 + 9 widerAcid Tests, be-ins, festivals and gatherings.
Places
10 + 7 widerFrom the La Honda ranch to Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock.
Groups
6 + 11 widerThe Pranksters, the Dead, the Angels and kindred tribes.
Works & Artifacts
15 + 42 widerThe bus, the books, the film and the catalog.
Topics
1 + 1 widerIdeas and substances that shaped the scene.
One story, still going
Full timeline- 1959 Created Naked Lunch
- 1961 Created Kaddish
- June 1, 1961 Created Stranger in a Strange Land
- 1962 Formed The Rolling Stones
- 1962 Created One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)
- 1964-06 Milestone The bus gets its name
- 1964-06 Milestone Furthur leaves La Honda
- 1974 Milestone Kesey starts publishing Spit in the Ocean
- 1974 Milestone A second bus joins the family
- 1984-01 Milestone Jed Kesey dies after a wrestling-team van crash
- 1986 Milestone Demon Box published
- 1989 Milestone Caverns, written with his students
- 1990-10-01 Milestone Further Inquiry is published
- 1992 Milestone Sailor Song published
- 2006-01 Milestone Plans to restore the original bus
- 2008 Milestone Furthur Down the Road Foundation founded
- 2010-06 Milestone A week-long bus painting party at the Kesey farm
- 2013 Milestone University of Oregon buys the Kesey papers
- 2014 Milestone A 50th-anniversary trip
- 2026-08-17 Milestone The original bus leaves the Oregon farm
- 2026-09-05 Milestone “Forever Grateful” opens in Golden Gate Park
- 2026-10-25 Milestone The exhibition closes and restoration planning begins
- 2026-11-10 Milestone Twenty-five years since Ken Kesey’s death