Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography: the Rikers, the PCDW, and Holy City
Summary of Collection
Related Material at History San Jose
Descriptive Summary
Title: Harry Plate collection: The Rikers and Holy City, 1900-1970
Dates: 1900-1970
Bulk Dates: 1960s
Collector:
Plate, Harry
Collection Size:
2 ms boxes, 1 flat box
Repository:
History San Jose Research Library.
San Jose, California 95112-2599
Physical location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the History San Jose Research Library.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
The collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
History San Jose can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claims of the
copyright holder. Permission to copy or publish any portion of History San Jose's collection must be given by History San
Jose.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Harry Plate collection: The Rikers and Holy City, 1900-1970, [Box No.] History San Jose Research
Library.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Trudy Plate (Mrs. Harry Plate), Scottsdale, Arizona, 2007
Biography: the Rikers, the PCDW, and Holy City
“Father” William “Ed” Riker (1873 Oakdale, Ca – 1969, Agnews State Hospital, Santa Clara Co., CA) and his wife,
“Mother” Lucille Schutrum Jensen Riker (1874 Nebraska – 1950 Holy City, CA), lead a utopian communal cult, The Perfect
Christian Divine Way (PCDW). Incorporated in Los Angeles in 1918 by Ed Riker, Irvin Fisher and Anna Schramm, the PCDW established
Holy City in 1919 in the hills above Los Gatos.
Riker later claimed it was a revelation in the hills above San Jose in 1906 that led him to change from palm reader to
“The Comforter.” A former San Francisco waiter, salesman and con-man, Riker, and later Ohio-born mechanic Irvin Fisher
(1881-1980), drew many of their followers from among financially struggling and marginally educated middle-aged throughout
the Midwest. (Riker first met Fisher in Indianapolis in 1913). Counter to rumor, they were not all single, nor was
“free love” a common practice. Riker, charismatic and all-knowing, offered simple answers to life’s many complex questions.
Holy City flourished during the 1920s and 30s as a popular road stop along the difficult mountain road from San Jose to
Santa Cruz, where the curious could stop for a bite to eat or help with an overheated radiator, or take a peek at a
strange array of attractions or debate “perfect government.” Although the PCDW itself probably never numbered more than
about 30 confirmed disciples, the population of Holy City and the surrounding neighborhood peaked at around 300.
Holy City’s small population declined rapidly after the 1940 construction of Highway 17, which bypassed the village.
The real death knell, however, was Lucile Riker’s death in 1950. While she had not been able to keep her husband’s
political ambitions in check (a career move that had divided the PCDW community), her very pragmatic business sense had
kept the community self-supporting. Riker lost control of the property in an attempt to revise Holy City’s fortunes by
transferring ownership to an alleged, and very minor, Hollywood producer, Maurice Kline, in 1956-57. Subsequent legal
battles left the PCDW dispossessed and Holy City in the hands of a land development company. By the early 1960s, little
was left after arson and bulldozers destroyed most buildings.
Summary of Collection
Harry Plate, journalist and writer, served as Associate Editor of
California Today, the Sunday magazine section of the
San Jose Mercury News. He subsequently moved to Arizona. These files were compiled in 1970 to support what Plate intended
to be a series of three feature articles on the life of William Riker (1873-1969), and the evolution of Holy City,
California, home of the disciples of Riker’s Perfect Christian Divine Way.
To get beyond the “tidy collection of vignettes” that made up most popular accounts of Holy City, Plate interviewed Riker
family members, aging disciples, and Holy City neighbors and critics. Riker’s niece, Helen Dunning, and nephew, Ray Riker,
helped Plate pin down elusive details of Riker’s early life and background. “First disciple” Irvin B. Fisher, then
approaching 90, provided additional details about The Philosophy, while Joe Albert, an early disciple and one of the few
remaining PCDW residents of Holy City, allowed him limited access to the Riker house. The PCDW’s youngest disciple and
self-proclaimed heir, Wallace Stovall, gave Plate access to early documentation and photographs.
Plate’s extensive correspondence with Robert Alexander Clogher provides special insight. Clogher, a local surveyor and
self-styled “Passing Paladin of the Holy Citizens,” had helped the remaining eight elderly PCDW disciples protest Riker’s
illegal “sale” of Holy City to an alleged Hollywood producer, Maurice Kline, in 1956. Fourteen years later, Clogher still
held the
San Jose Mercury News culpable for siding with Riker and Kline in dispossessing the elderly disciples. Clogher
found Plate a sympathetic ear, however, and he shared much of what he’d learned about the community and helped correct
many apocryphal stories.
Included among Plate’s research and interview notes are many original Riker letters, 100 photographs and postcards, other
early PCDW documents and printed material. In addition to the original material, several sources (particularly Wallace
Stovall) allowed Plate to photocopy their originals. Also included are news clippings, and a notebook kept by postmistress
and bookkeeper Winifred Allington.
Plate’s “Riker: From Mechanic to Messiah,”
California Today (San Jose Mercury News) (30 August 1970), pp. 6-10, about Ed
Riker’s early years, was the only article he completed on the topic. “I’ll probably do two or three other installments,
covering the subsequent years—but not right away,” he wrote Helen Dunning. “First, we’ll wait to see if this brings any
new witnesses out of the woods.” Local and national events of this busy summer apparently intruded. Nevertheless, Plate’s
collection remains a rich source for further study of Holy City’s community.
Related Material at History San Jose
William E. Riker, “Notes of “Father” Riker (ca. 12 pages of notes, n.d.), accession no. 1997-237-666.
News clippings collection: Cities and Towns: Holy City (1 folder)
Charles J. Allard,
‘Father’ William E. Riker and his Holy City, Unpublished
Masters Thesis, San Jose State University, 1968.
Joan B. Barriga,
The Holy City Sideshow (San Jose: Santa Clara County Pioneers,
1988). Unpublished paper submitted to the Santa Clara County Pioneers.
Betty Lewis,
Holy City: Riker’s Roadside Attraction in the Santa Cruz Mountains,
a Nostalgic History
(Otter B. Books, 1992). Reference Coll: F868.S33.L49x.1992
Eleanor Mauro,
William E. Riker and Holy City: An Historical Study of One Man’s Utopia,
Unpublished Masters Thesis, Dept. of Librarianship, San Jose State College, 1971.