If your best friend conned you out of millions of dollars,
would they still be your best friend? Hi everyone, Ken here, today we are exploring
Scotty’s Castle in California’s Death Valley. Make sure to hit that subscribe
button so you never miss an exciting, or maybe scandalous, episode of "ThisHouse"!!
As we begin exploring Scotty’s Castle, we will continue to see the house while we uncover
why anyone would build a 32,000 square foot mega mansion in the middle of Death Valley.
In 1872, Albert Johnson was born to a wealthy Ohio family. His father had made millions in
the banking industry and had invested heavily in utility and railroad companies. The family
was very religious, so much so that Albert never so much as tasted alcohol for the entirety of his
life. When he graduated college, Albert borrowed 40,000 dollars from his dad, the modern equivalent
of about one and a half million dollars, to invest in a Missouri zinc mining operation.
This investment ended up being incredibly lucrative. Albert decided to continue investing in
mining, but this time, he wanted to find Gold. He boarded a train with his father, headed out west
to California to scout for mines to invest in. While the father and son were traveling, another
train collided with theirs causing their train to catastrophically derail. While Albert survived,
his father did not. With a broken back, doctors told Albert that he would never walk again,
but after three years of pushing himself through painful therapy, he made a near full recovery.
Now that he was feeling better and had inherited his father’s vast fortune,
he moved to Chicago to join forces with Edward Shedd, his father’s former business partner.
The two went into business together, purchasing the National Life Insurance Company. The company
was so successful that Albert’s yearly salary was paid in the sum of 1 million dollars,
the modern day equivalent of nearly 34 million dollars per year. When his business success was
reported, it caught the attention of one of the nation’s most notorious con men, Walter Scott.
Walter Scott had been arrested several times for
selling everything from snakes oil to fake bonds and running dozens money laundering
and embezzlement schemes. If there was a way to commit fraud, Scott had done it.
Scotty sent one of his associates to meet with Johnson and Shedd to sell them on the idea of a
fictitious gold mining operation in California’s Death Valley. The two bought into the con under
the belief that they would receive generous returns on their investments. But as time went,
no checks ever came in the mail. They decided to travel out west to investigate the mines
for themselves. As they arrived in Death Valley, Scotty greeted them and began a tour of the bogus
mining operation when suddenly, a group of armed bandits jumped out of hiding. These bandits had
been hired by Scotty to scare of the investors from the property so that they wouldn’t discover
the truth. Unfortunately for the bandits, one of the investors was packing and shot them.
At this point, they all realized what had actually happened and withdrew their investments. Well, all
of them except for Albert Johnson. For some reason he continued to believe that there must be a giant
mining operation. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he had been conned. He believed
that no one would go through all this effort if there wasn’t a massive lode of gold to protect.
He continued giving money to Scotty for years, never receiving a return on his investment.
After nearly a decade, he hired a private detective to inspect
Scotty’s property who confirmed that there was no gold and no active mines.
Albert refused to believe him and began making trips out to Death Valley by himself.
Scotty must have been the most talented con man of all time, or maybe Albert was just
the most gullible man of all time, either way, as Albert began visiting seasonally year after year,
he continued with the belief that Scotty had a successful mining operation that
he was refusing to show to him. But as the time went on, Scotty and Albert became best friends.
Albert would look forward to spending his winters camping in a tent with Scotty and listening to his
outrageous stories. By 1915, Albert had purchased some property in Death Valley and built a small
cabin. Then in 1922, after 20 years of believing the con, Albert’s wife decided to accompany him
on a trip out west. She was an affluent Chicago socialite who couldn’t stomach the
idea of ruffing it in the wild and demanded that Albert build a proper vacation house for them.
Albert purchased 1,500 acres and began constructing the
32,000 square foot Spanish Villa style home we have been seeing throughout the video.
He positioned it over the springs of Grapevine Canyon so that a pelton wheel could be turned by
the water to generate electricity for the house. Providing enough electricity to illuminate every
light and provide heated water while storing the excess electricity underground in nickel-iron
batteries. Of the houses other mechanical features, it had automatic blinds on some of
the windows as well as a 1,121 pipe organ which could be heard bellowing throughout the canyon.
Unfortunately, as was Albert’s nature, he was too trusting of the people he had hired to survey his
land. It turned out that the survey was not only mistaken, but was completely fabricated. His
mansion had built on government owned land while the actual land he had purchased sat miles away.
Thankfully, he was able to work out a land-lease deal with the government
to allow him to continue using the mansion, but that would eventually make it difficult to sell.
When Albert passed away in 1948, he willed the house to a religious organization under the strict
condition that Scotty be allowed to live in it and use it for his own purposes for the rest of
his life. Scotty, of course, did not stop being a con man. With unrestricted use of the house,
he invited financiers to the property where he pretended to be a successful business man and
convinced them to lend him large sums of money which he never intended on paying back. After
just a few short years of doing this, he passed away peacefully in 1954 at the age of 81 years
old and was buried next to his favorite dog on a hill overlooking Scotty’s Castle.
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