Sharing is caring!
- At the northwest corner of Waalew Road and Dale Evans Parkway in Apple Valley, just across the road from the Los Ranchos Mobile Home Park, is a vacant piece of desert with a few cement foundations and a smattering of trees near Bell Mountain.
Next time you drive by there you might want to know that in the 1940s and 50s it was a working ranch of a special sort. Known as “Murray’s Ranch,” and “The Overall Wearing Dude Ranch,” it was African-American owned and operated in the Bell Mountain community.
California Eagle, Sun, Aug 29, 1937
According to The History of Apple Valley by Kate O’ Rourke, Murray’s “Overall Wearing Dude Ranch” was the only African-American dude ranch in the United States, and the only ranch in the area to be written about in Life magazine at the time.
The earliest Black homesteaders received land patents in 1914 in the area known as the Bell Mountain District. By the 1940s there were 37 families in the settlement.
Murray’s Dude Ranch, Apple Valley, San Bernardino County, California.
The 40-acre ranch on the edge of the Mojave Desert was purchased by Nolie B. and Lela Murray in 1922 for $100 from the Cook family, and operated for nearly 20 years.
Prior to moving to the desert for Lela’s health, Nolie owned Murray’s Pocket Billiard Emporium and Cigar Store in Los Angeles. Their dream was to build creating a better world for underpriveleged Black children.
After selling his business, Nolie rolled up his sleeves and his dream slowly came to fruition. Eventually the fenced property featured twenty buildings, a swimming pool, tennis courts, riding stables, a dining hall and a ball field.
Postcard depicting Nolie and Lela Murray, owners of Murray’s Dude Ranch, Victorville, courtesy UCSD.
The ranch catered to troubled children, no matter their race. Courts sent some of the children to the ranch, but children suffering health issues also came to soak up the sun, activities and good will.
Lela was a registered nurse and made a specialty of caring for children suffering respiratory ailments.
No matter how good their intentions were though, the ranch struggled financially. Then things changed practically overnight.
California_Eagle_Sept 30, 1937
The spotlight highlighted the ranch in 1937 when Life magazine featured Murray’s Ranch in their November 15, 1937 issue.
The unexpected attention happened when heavy-weight boxing champion of the world Joe Louis was one of the attendees at an amatuer rodeo in Victorville, a town of about 2,000 people, with 10,000 other spectators and celebrities.
A Life magazine photography crew was in town to cover the rodeo. Joe happened to be staying at Murray’s Ranch and the large throng of curious rodeo fans followed him there. A giant picnic in the desert ensued.
After Joe’s visit, the ranch changed dramatically. The Murray’s debt problems were over.
Later, the ranch appeared in the February 1947 issue of Ebony magazine.
Celebrities such as ex-boxing champ Henry Armstrong, Mary McLeod Bethune, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Lena Horn, Kate Smith and Hedda Hopper visited the ranch.
Lela Murray died in 1949 at the age of 58. Six years later, Nolie married Los Angeles school teacher Callie Armstrong.
Murray’s hosted about 100 people each week during the height of the season, from May to September. Lela’s favorite guests remained the troubled and ailing youth from the city who visited the ranch and benefitted the most.
California Eagle, May 22, 1941
The setting for many western films of the era, including four of Herbert Jeffries’ “all-Black cast” westerns.
Jeffries, known as the singing cowboy, was the star of Harlem on the Prairie (1937), Two-Gun Man from Harlem (1938), The Bronze Buckaroo (1939), and Harlem Rides the Range (1939).
Murray’s was also a getaway for film and radio celebrities of all backgrounds. In fact, in 1955, the ranch was purchased by none other than Pearl Bailey and her husband, Louis Bellson, for nearly $65,000. They were former visitors of the ranch and became smitten. Both had fallen in love with the area and desert ambiance; they renamed the property the “Lazy B.”
Pearl Bailey and Louis Bellson, 1952.
The Murrays kept five acres and built and managed a motel until Nolie’s death in 1958 at the age of 70.
Bailey took to desert life by joining the Apple Valley Chamber of Commerce and became a den mother to a local Girl Scout troop. She lived at the ranch for nine years.
Daily Press Thu, Jun 16, 1955 ·Page 1
Pearl Bailey sold the Lazy B Ranch to her nephew, Bill Lewis. Later in the 1980s, he sold it to Jay McVeigh. The ranch evolved into a body building gym.
By the 1980s, the ranch was virtually forgotten. In 1988, it fell into receivership to San Bernardino County. No effort was made to preserve its important history. The buildings were intentionally burned to the ground in a fire fighting exercise.
Eventually most of the irreplaceable historic ranches of Apple Valley were torn down in the name of progress. Kemper Campbell Ranch and Hilltop are still active to this day.
1940 Edition by Victor H. Green, a black postal carrier from Harlem; published 1936–1966.
The historic ‘Negro Motorist Green Book‘ was a travel guide for African Americans during the Jim Crow era.
Many Black Americans preferred traveling by automobile, in part to avoid segregation on public transportation in order to be free of discomfort, discrimination, segregation and insult.
Murray’s Ranch is a Green-Book site on Route 66. It just finished a five year tour around the country on the traveling Smithsonian Greenbook exhibit. Lily Raglan’s former ranch, on Stoddard Wells Road, is also listed as a Green-Book site.
The Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Brown v. Board of Education declared state-sponsored segregation in public schools unconstitutional, effectively dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy. Yet, segregation in public areas continued.
Further progress was made with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, facilities, and employment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also played a crucial role by prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
Marcy Taylor, historian and owner of Apple Valley Legacy Museum, called the former Murray’s Ranch “a true gem for Black travelers in the long, hot, barren desert.”
It is sad this site does not have a historical marker in the vicinity noting the importance of Murray’s Ranch and its cultural significance.
Are you listening, Clampers?
Top Photo: Murray’s Ranch in the 1950s, superimposed over the open desert before a new housing development was built. Photo by John Earl.
