Courtesy of Zane and Stephanie Kesey

Ken Kesey's original Furthur Bus Leaves Oregon for the First Time Since 1969, Making its Only Public Debut at Forever Grateful in Golden Gate Park

The legendary psychedelic bus travels to San Francisco for a special exhibition this August presented by Haight Street Art Center, ahead of a multi-phased restoration

Furthur Down the Road Foundation and Haight Street Art Center today announce— Furthur — the original psychedelic hand-painted 1939 International Harvester school bus that carried Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters across the country in 1964 — will leave its barn home on the Kesey family farm in Oregon for the first time since 1969, when the Pranksters drove it to the original Woodstock festival. In mid-August, the bus will travel to San Francisco for its first-ever public exhibition, arriving as the exhibition centerpiece of Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park, the Haight Street Art Center's second Grateful Dead focused exhibition of 2026, open September 5 – October 25 in the park's County Fair Ground Building.

Furthur is among the most recognizable artifacts of the American counterculture. Immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the bus carried Kesey's Merry Pranksters on their 1964 cross-country journey and became, in the years that followed, an emblem of the free-spirited experimentation that shaped the Grateful Dead's own community. Since its rescue from decades of exposure to the elements, Furthur has remained in protective storage in Oregon — seen by the public only in photographs, never in person.

That changes this fall. Where the first Forever Grateful exhibition, currently on view at Haight Street Art Center, invites quiet contemplation of Grateful Dead history and artistry, Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park invites participation. Visitors will move through a psychedelic environment anchored by Furthur and by Jerry Garcia's BMW, encountering live performers, large-scale projections, original artwork, ephemera, puppetry, hands-on activities, and community storytelling installations — a space built for visitors to share, to listen, and to leave their own mark.

“Very few institutions are ever entrusted with a moment like this,” states Executive Director, Haight Street Art Center, Kelly Harris. “Thanks to Stephanie and Zane Kesey, we have the rare privilege of bringing Furthur into public view for the first and only time before it enters restoration — a chance to stand before the actual bus that carried Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters across the country, not a photograph or a replica, but the object itself. We take that responsibility seriously, both in how we present Furthur and in how we help build public support for the restoration work that lies ahead.”

Seen within the exhibition, Furthur takes on both historical and contemporary meaning — not only as a relic of the 1960s counterculture, but as a living symbol of the community that has grown up around the Grateful Dead in the decades since.

A Restoration Decades in the Making

“When people ask what my best work is, it's the bus,” Kesey told The Spokesman-Review in 2000. “Those books made it possible for the bus to become.”

For years, the Smithsonian Institution and others expressed interest in acquiring the bus, but the Kesey family decided to wait until now when the right opportunity arose. Furthur's appearance at Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park marks the beginning of that next chapter.

Following the close of the exhibition, the bus will enter the first phase of the restoration led by Stephanie Kesey, Ken Kesey's daughter-in-law and founder of the Furthur Down the Road Foundation, the Oregon nonprofit established to raise funds to support the restoration of Furthur to its original 1960s condition and preserve Ken Kesey's legacy for future generations. Kesey will be joined in the effort by the Haight Street Art Center team, led by Board Chair, Roger McNamee, who will work alongside the Foundation to develop a multi-phase restoration plan.

“Furthur has been out of public sight for more than fifty years, and that changes what restoring it means,” notes founder, Furthur Down the Road Foundation, Stephanie Kesey. “Our work is twofold: preserve the original bus for generations to come, and put it back in front of the people it was always meant to reach — before restoration begins, and permanently once it's complete. We chose Haight Street Art Center because their exhibition Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park is the right setting for Furthur’s first public appearance, and because their board and staff understand, as we do, what it takes to carry this history forward.”

San Francisco County Fair Building
1199 9th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94122