Padanaram radio drama. In the early 1960s Daniel Wright, an independent preacher, gathered a few followers who moved into adjacent homes in Martinsville, Indiana. In 1966 the congregation, numbering about a dozen, moved into an old farmhouse on 86 acres of land near Bedford, Indiana. For the first few years the community saw little publicity, although it grew modestly and established a sawmill. In the 1970s the explosion of communal life nationwide drew more attention to what was originally God's Valley (the name later became Padanaram), and it eventually grew to a reported 200 members, half of them children, on a land base that reached nearly 3,000 acres. Wright’s distinctive spiritual and social teachings guided the community until his death in 2001; many long-time members continued to live together on the property thereafter. In 2009 the community reported about 150 resident adults and children. Padanaram has a 600-acre branch colony called Hyder Park, located near Hyder, Arizona.