In the 1930s, a group nicknamed the Silver Shirts, led by William Dudley Pelley,
built a Nazi bunker / compound expressly for the purpose of serving as
the worldwide headquarters from which the Fascists’ conquest of the
world would come. The compound, called Murphy Ranch, was located in the hills of Los Angeles, California.
Murphy Ranch - a Nazi Bunker in the L.A. Hills
The
Silver Shirts were officially known as The Silver Legion of America.
They were an underground group of fascists, estimated to have as many as
15,000 members back in 1934. A variation of Hitler’s Brownshirts, the
dress code for this group was a silver shirt and tie, blue trousers, and
a hat. The shirts had the letter “L” over the heart, which meant
“Loyalty” to the American Republic and “Liberation” from materialism.
Meeting of the Silver Shirts
In
1935, the Nazis gave money to the Silver Legion to build a Nazi bunker
on a 55 acre site in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles. The compound featured a
tank for storing water, bomb shelter, power station, machine shed, and
garage. Back in the day, the ranch was actually owned by Will Rogers.
(In fact, the Nazi refuge is located very close to Will Rogers State
Historic Park). In 1933, Will Rogers sold the site to Jessie Murphy,
said to be an heiress to a large mining fortune. It is said that Murphy
became involved with a German man known as “Herr Schmidt”. Schmidt was
actually working for Hitler; he persuaded Murphy to spend $4 million on
“Murphy Ranch”, transforming it into a Nazi refuge. Murphy Ranch was
going to be where Nazi sympathizers held up while America was being
defeated by the Nazi regime. Location of Murphy Ranch
Murphy Ranch Water Tower
Winona and Norman Stephens
There’s a wrinkle in the Murphy story – she may not have existed.
Even through county records confirm the property’s purchase by one
Jessie Murphy, no other records of her exist, and nobody who lived in
the area at the time ever saw her. This led historian Thomas Young to
suspect that the name was a front. However, there was an engineer named
Norman Stephens, whose wife Winona was the daughter of a wealthy
industrialist. The story is that the Stephens’ were the ones who fell
under Herr Schmidt’s spell and financed the bunker. They were convinced
that once Germany won the war, law and order in the United States would
break down. Waiting it out at Murphy Ranch, the fascists would use it as
a command center while they were restoring order. William Dudley Pelley
William Dudley Pelley
William
Dudley Pelley grew up poor in Massachusetts; his father was a minister
and shoemaker. A good writer, Pelley eventually got into journalism and
wrote some short stories. As a foreign correspondent, he spent some time
in Russia, and came away there with a hatred for Jews and communists.
After moving to Asheville, NC, he got into politics. Inspired by
Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933, he founded the Silver
Shirts, which gained a following as he traveled around the U.S. giving
rallies and speeches. He founded the Christian Party (not to be confused
with today’s Christian Party) and even ran for president in ’36.
Pelley’s popularity was not long lasting; the membership of the Silver
Shirts soon dropped to 5,000. He caught FDR’s attention also, which
resulted in his headquarters being raided. Once the Japanese attacked at
Pearl Harbor, Murphy Ranch was also raided by authorities. When
America’s participation in WW2 was well underway, the Silver Legion was
done. Pelley himself died in 1965.
Gates to Murphy Ranch
Murphy
Ranch, now abandoned, became an artists’ colony in the 60s and 70s.
Henry Miller once lived there. In 1973, the land was purchased by the
city of Los Angeles. The Mandeville Canyon Fire of 1978
destroyed a lot of the remaining structures. Today, the remains of
Murphy Ranch are in a state of ruin and covered with graffiti, but
hikers can still access it.
Sometime this year (2012), Murphy
Ranch will be bulldozed and turned into a picnic area for hikers, and a
piece of bizarre American history will be gone forever.
Sources for this article: The Daily Mail, The Native L.A. Tourist, Hikespeak, Wikipedia
