Talk:Murphy Ranch

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There is zero evidence that the German government or any home-grown fascist organizations had anything to do with this property. We only have the word of one college professor who talked to the last owners of the property, and that info is very vague. I also don't think that the Daily Mail should be used as a source...

This is a sober-minded article from LA Curbed about the subject: http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/09/what_really_happened_at_rustic_canyons_rumored_nazi_ranch.php

This whole subject is not quite as juicy as it seems...

On the one hand we have evidence for a massive neo-Nazi presence in the area and multiple historians supporting the idea. One of these historians has a memo in the archives from the late 1930s indicating that they were aware of the home-grown fascist organization operating on that property. On the other hand, we have a book written by a descendant of the family who owned Murphy Ranch. Viriditas (talk) 01:32, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Dubious?

This Reuschstein, Yosef H. The Journal of Yosef Reuschstein. Print does not seem to exist. There is no "Reuschstein" on Wikipedia. reference seems dubious. Jim1138 (talk) 07:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Some Kook?

According to Norma Theanne Stevens, daughter of Norman Stevens, the family lived there during the war and "All of this about nazis and a Herr Schmidt is a bunch of garbage, totally made up by some kook." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.137.134.50 (talk) 13:42, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Urban Legend

As stated above, there is no factual basis for the Nazi story. A more likely story is told by Stanton Stevens, grandson of Norman and Winona Stevens, in the book "The True Story of Murphy Ranch". As Theanne Stevens says, the urban legend is "totally made up by some kook," or at least people who easily believe and expand on urban legends. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LoveRulesAll (talk • contribs) 20:47, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Except there is documented evidence of more than 20 fascist and neo-Nazi organizations opertating in that area at the time. Viriditas (talk) 00:30, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

"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...a local chapter of the Silver Shirts..[had] Southland chapters in Baldwin Park, Huntington Park, Inglewood, Long Beach, and Los Angeles." Viriditas (talk) 01:29, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

More History and Corrections

I have rewritten the page to provide much more information about the history of Murphy Ranch. I also broke out the Nazi urban legend into its own section. The previous version was mainly about the legend. If you have some feedback for me, please let me know. Please DON'T do a heavy-handed reversion to the previous version because there is something that you don't like! I am open to learning more about how to improve a Wikipedia article, and would be happy to dialog about it.

Stanton Stevens' source

Stevens' explanation is compelling, but as a descendant of subjects of the article he is not independent. Risedemise (talk) 09:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is very limited, one should read my book, https://a.co/d/ba0IvnN, if you really want to consider the story and the page's accuracy. The LA Times is working on an article on Murphy Ranch, if I cite that and update the page, would that satisfy your objection? I certainly can't expect them to update the Wikipedia page; I am the best qualified to "curate" the story and I purposefully tried to be objective in the Wikipedia page. LoveRulesAll (talk) 20:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed the currently available reliable sources seem limited primarily to rumors with scarce hard facts, and this article prior to your rewrite was not in great shape. Nevertheless, a book written by a relative can't simply be taken as gospel, and needs to be independently verified by reliable sources (such as the LA Times) or independent scholars. Or at the very least, assertions that haven't been independently verified ought to be stated on Wikipedia as claims, rather than asserted as fact.

Additionally, please note Wikipedia strongly discourages Conflict Of Interest editing. Please read the linked guidelines for editing articles on topics you are connected to. Risedemise (talk) 05:41, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I am inclined to believe this is an urban legend. One thing that is interesting is that one year before the FBI allegedly raided Murphy Ranch (which apparently did not happen), an actual, anti-Nazi FBI raid did occur in New York in January 1940. One wonders if the story about Murphy Ranch was conflated with the New York operation one year earlier. Viriditas (talk) 10:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Editing Requires Research

I am reverting the latest large re-write. It contains a number of unsupported statements, some of which are definitely false. Someone editing a Wikipedia page should do enough research to be properly prepared, since the Wikipedia page is currently considered authoritative. I recommend subscribing to newspapers.com, where, for instance, you can find that Jessie M. Murphy was a real person, mentioned in the society pages. Also, no one should edit this page so severely without reading The True Story of Murphy Ranch, which has more information than any other source. The many newspaper articles that repeat the Nazi legend don't make it truer and are not evidence for the legend. They simply uncritically repeat the same story with its weak origin. Real research is work, but it must be done if you want to speak with authority. LoveRulesAll (talk) 22:12, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I think the rumor persists because SoCal has had a long-running Nazi problem that has never truly gone away. I have a book that talks about Nazi sympathizers in 1930s San Luis Obispo, for example. I have another book that argues the reason SoCal has such a history of racism is because the Dust Bowl brought a lot of racists to California. Much of this kind of thing has gone somewhat unexamined, but there is a story that ties it all together waiting to be written. Viriditas (talk) 10:34, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

From the 2005 LATimes article: On Dec. 8, 1941, a day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, law enforcement officials stormed the compound and made some arrests, according to the oral histories. But Young could find no other details about the event. @LoveRulesAll: Has anyone filed a FOIA on this? Viriditas (talk) 11:28, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Aaron Blevins says he filed a FOIA in 2012. Viriditas (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Looking further into this, it does not appear to be an urban legend at all. Steven J. Ross' Hitler in Los Angeles (2017) not only treats it as real, but places it into the context of the documented fascist and Nazi movement in Los Angeles, comprising more than 20 organizations. I have to say that I was a bit surprised to see this described as an "urban legend" here. Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

The current version of this article says: In his 2017 book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, Steven Joseph Ross repeated some of Randy Young's claims. Except, I'm looking at the book right now, and that appears to be a distortion of what it says. While it is certainly true that Ross repeats the same thing Betty Lou Young says, Ross also adds two new data points: a memo from June 1939 in the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, Community Relations Committee Collection, that shows that the group was aware of "the headquarters of some Fascist movement" being built in the mountains, as a well as a Los Angeles Times article dated June 30, 1940. However, I can find nothing on newspapers.com about this topic for that date. Viriditas (talk) 00:56, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Three articles in one

This needs to be dealt with. We have three articles:

• Camp Josepho - currently treated in a subsection over at Western Los Angeles County Council, but obviously treated as part of this topic as it is adjacent to Murphy and later combined to form the Rustic Canyon art colony
• Murphy Ranch - the present article, mostly unsourced and filled with gossip and rumor
• Rustic Canyon art colony - the property consisting of Camp Josepho and Murphy Ranch from around 1948 to 1965.

Now, my personal interest here is in the visual arts, specifically writing about the Rustic Canyon art colony which is easy to source and verify as there is quite a bit written about it. I don't think we need three articles, but given the treatment of Camp Josepho in the WLACC article, it's probably fine there for now. Given these problems, I'm probably going to start a separate article about the Rustic Canyon art colony, but that is a bit of a problem given the overlap. This is an unusual problem that we don't see too often. Viriditas (talk) 10:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Okay, after spending several hours reading up on this, I see now that all three articles deserve to be kept separate. I also don't think "Rustic Canyon art colony" is the correct name for the planned new article, it's the "Huntington Hartford Foundation", which I will complete in my sandbox. I also figured out how to fix this article and how to finally move things forward, but I won't be able to get to that right away. Viriditas (talk) 21:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Changed Rustic Canyon location

The ranch is not located in what is now Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles. That's a neighborhood, not the mountains. Viriditas (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Rustic canyon runs up into the Santa Monica mountains/Will Rogers State Park, north of the neighborhood of Rustic Canyon. ~2026-37493-62 (talk) 13:57, 29 June 2026 (UTC)