Holy City, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Holy City is an unincorporated community in Santa Clara County, California. With only one permanent resident, it is arguably a ghost town. The town is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, off Highway 17 on Old Santa Cruz Highway, at (37.1568904, -121.9788476)GR3. It is part of the Lexington Hills census-designated place. Its ZIP code is 95026.
Holy City was founded in 1919 by cult-leader William E. Riker and about thirty of his followers. Calling his ideology "The Perfect Divine Christian Way", Riker preached celibacy, temperance, white supremacy, and segregation of the races and sexes. He apparently exempted himself from this ideology, as he had previously been a bigamist and later married one of his followers. He also encouraged his followers to renounce material possessions by giving all of their wealth to him.
It was with this wealth that Riker bought the two hundred acres that became Holy City. Here he offered tourist services including a restaurant and gas station. The town incorporated in 1926.
A radio station offering a variety of programming was built in 1924 and went on the air on July 7 of that year under the call letters KFQU. Though the call letters may appear obscene, they were issued sequentially and could not have been deliberate. The station went off the air in December 1931, and had its license renewal denied on January 11, 1932, due to "irregularities."
Ironically, the "religious" community had no church; services were held in Riker's home. Holy City expanded to three hundred residents during the 1930s.
The town began to decline in the 1940s. With the construction of Highway 17, Holy City was no longer on the main route through the mountains. With the end of the Depression, many of Riker's followers were able to find work elsewhere. Riker himself was arrested in 1942 for supporting Adolf Hitler, though he was later acquitted. The town disincorporated in 1959, and Riker lost control of the property. Several of the buildings mysteriously burned down shortly afterwards.
Holy City is currently owned by three developers who bought the property in the mid 1960s. They had plans to develop the property but never did. In November 2006, they put the property up for sale with an asking price of 11 million dollars. There is one full time resident of Holy City, who lives in the former home of William Riker. There is also a glass blowing studio called Holy City Art Glass, which has been run by artist Tom Stanton for the past thirty years.
[edit] External links
- Wave Magazine article about Holy City
- Excerpt from Richard Beal's book Highway 17: The Road to Santa Cruz
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps or MapQuest
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, or WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
Cities
Population over 100,000: San Jose (County seat) • Santa Clara • Sunnyvale
Population 50,000 – 100,000: Cupertino • Milpitas • Mountain View • Palo Alto
Population under 50,000: Campbell • Gilroy • Los Altos • Los Altos Hills • Los Gatos • Monte Sereno • Morgan Hill • Saratoga
Census-designated places
Alum Rock • Buena Vista • Burbank • East Foothills • Fruitdale • Lexington Hills • Loyola • San Martin • Seven Trees • Stanford • Sunol-Midtown
Other unincorporated communities
Bell Station • Casa Loma • Chemeketa Park • Holy City • Loma Chiquita • Redwood Estates • Rucker • San Antonio • Sargent • Sveadal