Rustic Canyon Ruin May Be a Former Nazi Compound

A debris-filled concrete water tank, twice as big as a typical swimming pool, was used to store water from a creek that runs through the canyon. A dirt roadway from the entrance leads down the canyon to the charred and twisted steel remains of a garage and workshop with second-story living quarters. A power station with foot-thick walls shared space with a bomb shelter. Up and down the length of the canyon rise eight crumbling, narrow stairways of at least 500 steps each.

According to Los Angeles County records, a Jessie M. Murphy purchased the 50-acre parcel in Rustic Canyon in 1933. That's how the place came to be known as Murphy Ranch.

Young suspects that Murphy was a front name used by the Nazi group to buy the property. There are no other records of Murphy, nor does the name surface in stories passed along by old-time canyon residents, Young said.

A man known through oral histories only as "Herr Schmidt" supposedly ruled the place and claimed to possess metaphysical powers. He purportedly used the ranch to introduce his Nazi-inspired political philosophy.

Gloria Ricci Lothrop, a Cal State Northridge emeritus professor of California history, who is familiar with Young's book and the theory that the canyon was a onetime Nazi colony, said the idea was not farfetched: "Given the degree of activity among Nazi sympathizers in Southern California, such an enterprise would not be so surprising."

For example, she said, one group was called Friends of the New Germany. Another was a local chapter of the Silver Shirts. The group operated in 22 states, numbering between 15,000 and 50,000 members, with Southland chapters in Baldwin Park, Huntington Park, Inglewood, Long Beach and Los Angeles.

The groups considered Southern California, especially Hollywood, paramount in their campaign against Jews. Propaganda was distributed nationwide from L.A. In 1934, a congressional subcommittee investigation in L.A. examined the pro-Nazi movement.

"This place fit the mold perfectly, secluded away from civilization," Young said.

The man known as Herr Schmidt apparently attracted a wealthy couple to his colony. The couple lived at Murphy Ranch and bankrolled its construction, paying millions for architectural plans, buildings and landscaping.

In 1934, architect Welton Becket -- who would later design the Capitol Records building and the Music Center -- was hired to design a small stone house and several outer buildings on the ranch. The name of his supposed client, Jessie Murphy, appeared on all his drawings, according to Young.