Nat Mendelsohn
The following citation on the life of Nat Mendelsohn, was written by Glenn Stevenson, at one time a member of our Historical Society. Glenn has since passed, but his writings and love for California City, lives on:
It is strange that there is not a street, park, school or anything named for the founder of California City, Nathan (Nat) K. Mendelsohn. No, he was not a bewhiskered old prospector looking for desert gold or a Basque sheepherder roaming the desert. He was, in fact, a handsome dapper gentleman, usually dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, a Homburg hat, white gloves, and a gold tip cane presenting a striking figure of erudite gentility.
Mendelsohn was born in Czechoslovakia on March 23, 1915 and came to the USA with his parents five years later. He attended elementary school in New York City and was graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He went on to City College of New York graduating with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1935. Early on he exhibited a high degree of intelligence with an inquiring mind and was always top of his class.
Two years later he achieved a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and began a teaching career at Columbia under the guidance of Professor Edmund Brunner, a famed rural sociology authority. During the years that followed with Brunner, Mendelsohn became fascinated with the life and structures of towns and villages. In his work and research he travelled extensively in the south and Midwest doing research projects for the Department of Agriculture. His specialty became land usage in rural America.
Nat also broadened his fields of expertise into psychology and sociology and did extensive work for the City of New York. He became a teacher and lecturer in the nursing schools of Kings County, Harlem and Lincoln Hospitals.
Then came World War II, and at age 26 he relinquished his teaching career to work with the Office of Price Administration in Washington as an economist specializing in farm income research. After the war he left the OPA to become treasurer and controller of Cyclohm Motors, manufacturers of power generators and special control equipment. After four years he left the company to head for the golden land of exploding opportunity, California. Here he planned to use all of his accumulated knowledge of planning, finance, and psychology to launch a land development career.
His first venture was a development called Arlanza Village in Riverside County. His development company took over an abandoned Army facility and turned it into a prosperous community supported by an industrial park that included the great Rohr Aircraft.
After seven years on the Arlanza Project, Mendelsohn began to look into the possibilities of development on the northern desserts. He believed that eventually the population boom would spill northward over the mountains and into the desert. Working with another famous developer, M. Penn Phillips, he began to develop Hesperia in the Victor Valley north of San Bernardino.
Nat took a liking for the desert and began to look around for other areas of great possibility. In 1956 he discovered the vast M & R (Mendiburu & Rudnick) Ranch in the Boron Valley northeast of Mojave. Besides running sheep the ranch grew extensive fields of cotton and alfalfa, irrigated by eleven high-producing water wells. To his surprise, he learned that the water level in the wells never dropped, no matter how hard they were pumped. There seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of water under the Boron Valley. Some experts even claimed that an underground lake lay under the desert floor.
Mendelsohn began negotiations to acquire a substantial part of the M&R, the Conklin Homestead, and other desert lands to the east, going all the way to Route 395. There were stories of Nat going out to a remote scenic hill which lay in about the middle of his dream project. Here he would spend days looking over the vast expanse and dreaming up his brain child, a desert metropolis of tomorrow. Mendelsohn’s great hero was Galilei Galileo, the legendary astronomer, visionary, and dreamer of the 16th century Florence. As he sat on top of his favorite viewpoint he decided to name it “Galileo Hill”.
Working with the best team of planners and city experts he could find, Mendelsohn drew up his visionary master plan covering over 80,000 acres and decided to call it “California City”. A development company was formed and the first properties were marketed in 1958.
During his California years he resided in the Hollywood Hills with his wife Sylvia and their two daughters, Janet and Wendy, who were born in 1944 and 1954. Although Nat was a visionary dreamer, he was also a pragmatic workaholic with little time for other activities. He did find time for a little golf, loved chess and was a fanatic baseball fan rooting for both the Dodgers and Giants.
Nat Mendelsohn passed away a decade ago leaving a legacy of a number of beautifully developed communities. He was a superb speaker and wrote a monthly column in his paper, the Sun. We owe him a big thank-you for creating the wonderful city so many of us call home. Perhaps the time has come to recognize this remarkable man.
FOOTNOTE:
Mendelsohn and his associates sold the development company to Great Western United Corp., a Denver-based sugar and mining company, in 1969. Mendelsohn became an officer of Great Western, but he concentrated on pursuits away from California City. By the mid-1970s he was rarely spotted here.
He died in 1984 after suffering a heart attack on a golf course near a resort community he founded in Texas.
It is strange that there is not a street, park, school or anything named for the founder of California City, Nathan (Nat) K. Mendelsohn. No, he was not a bewhiskered old prospector looking for desert gold or a Basque sheepherder roaming the desert. He was, in fact, a handsome dapper gentleman, usually dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, a Homburg hat, white gloves, and a gold tip cane presenting a striking figure of erudite gentility.
Mendelsohn was born in Czechoslovakia on March 23, 1915 and came to the USA with his parents five years later. He attended elementary school in New York City and was graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He went on to City College of New York graduating with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1935. Early on he exhibited a high degree of intelligence with an inquiring mind and was always top of his class.
Two years later he achieved a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and began a teaching career at Columbia under the guidance of Professor Edmund Brunner, a famed rural sociology authority. During the years that followed with Brunner, Mendelsohn became fascinated with the life and structures of towns and villages. In his work and research he travelled extensively in the south and Midwest doing research projects for the Department of Agriculture. His specialty became land usage in rural America.
Nat also broadened his fields of expertise into psychology and sociology and did extensive work for the City of New York. He became a teacher and lecturer in the nursing schools of Kings County, Harlem and Lincoln Hospitals.
Then came World War II, and at age 26 he relinquished his teaching career to work with the Office of Price Administration in Washington as an economist specializing in farm income research. After the war he left the OPA to become treasurer and controller of Cyclohm Motors, manufacturers of power generators and special control equipment. After four years he left the company to head for the golden land of exploding opportunity, California. Here he planned to use all of his accumulated knowledge of planning, finance, and psychology to launch a land development career.
His first venture was a development called Arlanza Village in Riverside County. His development company took over an abandoned Army facility and turned it into a prosperous community supported by an industrial park that included the great Rohr Aircraft.
After seven years on the Arlanza Project, Mendelsohn began to look into the possibilities of development on the northern desserts. He believed that eventually the population boom would spill northward over the mountains and into the desert. Working with another famous developer, M. Penn Phillips, he began to develop Hesperia in the Victor Valley north of San Bernardino.
Nat took a liking for the desert and began to look around for other areas of great possibility. In 1956 he discovered the vast M & R (Mendiburu & Rudnick) Ranch in the Boron Valley northeast of Mojave. Besides running sheep the ranch grew extensive fields of cotton and alfalfa, irrigated by eleven high-producing water wells. To his surprise, he learned that the water level in the wells never dropped, no matter how hard they were pumped. There seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of water under the Boron Valley. Some experts even claimed that an underground lake lay under the desert floor.
Mendelsohn began negotiations to acquire a substantial part of the M&R, the Conklin Homestead, and other desert lands to the east, going all the way to Route 395. There were stories of Nat going out to a remote scenic hill which lay in about the middle of his dream project. Here he would spend days looking over the vast expanse and dreaming up his brain child, a desert metropolis of tomorrow. Mendelsohn’s great hero was Galilei Galileo, the legendary astronomer, visionary, and dreamer of the 16th century Florence. As he sat on top of his favorite viewpoint he decided to name it “Galileo Hill”.
Working with the best team of planners and city experts he could find, Mendelsohn drew up his visionary master plan covering over 80,000 acres and decided to call it “California City”. A development company was formed and the first properties were marketed in 1958.
During his California years he resided in the Hollywood Hills with his wife Sylvia and their two daughters, Janet and Wendy, who were born in 1944 and 1954. Although Nat was a visionary dreamer, he was also a pragmatic workaholic with little time for other activities. He did find time for a little golf, loved chess and was a fanatic baseball fan rooting for both the Dodgers and Giants.
Nat Mendelsohn passed away a decade ago leaving a legacy of a number of beautifully developed communities. He was a superb speaker and wrote a monthly column in his paper, the Sun. We owe him a big thank-you for creating the wonderful city so many of us call home. Perhaps the time has come to recognize this remarkable man.
FOOTNOTE:
Mendelsohn and his associates sold the development company to Great Western United Corp., a Denver-based sugar and mining company, in 1969. Mendelsohn became an officer of Great Western, but he concentrated on pursuits away from California City. By the mid-1970s he was rarely spotted here.
He died in 1984 after suffering a heart attack on a golf course near a resort community he founded in Texas.
