Murray's Dude Ranch

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Murray's Dude Ranch, Apple Valley, California

Murray's Ranch, sometimes called the Overall Wearing Dude Ranch, was a guest ranch in Apple Valley, California from the 1920s until the 1960s. The ranch was located at the northwest corner of Waalew Road and Dale Evans Parkway in Apple Valley, just outside the city limits of Victorville. It was unique in that it was owned by African Americans and catered primarily to an African-American clientele.^[1] It also served as the set for a number of "all-black cast" western movies.

[edit] History

The 40-acre site was purchased for $100 in 1926. The ranch was founded by Nolie B. Murray, a Black businessman from Los Angeles.^[2] Operated for nearly 20 years as a dude ranch with a pool, several small houses, tennis courts, and riding stables, the ranch was used by entertainment personalities and by ordinary families. It was open to all who could afford to come. Murray's was a recreational favorite for Blacks, and a marker in the history of Black recreation. In the 1920s, when Murray's Dude Ranch opened, widespread segregation practices limited Black Californians' access to most private and public recreational facilities. Resorts, hotels, nightclubs, and even public parks in many California communities were closed to Black patrons. For nearly half of the 20th century, recreational activities of the Black community were carried out in separate facilities. Apple Valley was once well known for the guest ranches that flourished there from about World War I to the mid-1950s. Black-owned resorts were established in the first two decades of the 20th century, including Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, and Piru in Ventura County.

Films shot on location at Murray's Dude Ranch were four "all-black cast" westerns, starring Herbert Jeffries as a black singing cowboy, made in the late 1930s. Harlem on the Prairie (1937), Two-Gun Man from Harlem (1938), The Bronze Bukaroo (1939), and Harlem Ridges the Range (1939) featured songs by Jefferies and the Four Tones, his backing vocal group.^[3]

Murray's hosted about 100 people each week during the height of the season, from May to September. The visitors from this period included Lena Horne, Kate Smith, Joe Louis,^[4] Hedda Hopper, Freddie Bartholomew,^[5] Hattie McDaniel, Clark Gable and Louise Beavers.^[6] In 1955 the ranch eventually was purchased for $65,000 by one of the most famous black celebrities of all, the world-renowned singer and actress Pearl Bailey, who for nearly a decade spent her days as an Apple Valley housewife when she could get away from the demands of her career in films and entertainment.^[7] She sold the ranch in the mid-1960s. In 1988 the old buildings, not worth salvaging, were burned for a training session of the Apple Valley Fire Department.^[8]