Flat Earth City

Hey true weirdos, we owe you a big thanks because of you We won two w3 awards for best history podcast and best host for the episode Koki and lucky and we've won three signal awards and I'm really excited about these for the episode doomsday clock We won silver for best history episode We won silver for best craft editing and production and max also won a listeners choice signal award for his outstanding work On doomsday clock his outstanding work on every episode, but that one was recognized. None of this will be happening without you We are so grateful for our community of listeners who come to this podcast every single week to hear these stories We make it for you. We couldn't do it without you We hope you'll stick around after the episode because there's more to the story bonus content and conversation Fear that ghouls would steal the body and hold it for ransom led followers of Wilbur Glenn Voleva at Zion City to conceal the fact of the death of a millionaire James Curry of Big Springs, Texas for nearly a week or Until a burglar proof steel vault could be installed at the Zion City Cemetery Okay, first of all, what and who and why in the strange religious empire over which Wilbur Glenn Voleva ruled his authority was complete So let me get this straight Bolivar on some kind of religious Empire and his followers are afraid of grave robbers Mr. Wilbur Glenn Voleva Self-appointed censor of morals and manners in Zion City Has ordained that his policemen shall be equipped with quilts 15 feet square in which to wrap women wearing knickers while taking them to jail Oh boy women in pants. Here we go. Boliva says the earth is flat Rimmed by a high wall of ice to keep travelers and mariners from falling over the edge The sky is a solid dome Resting on this ice wall The Sun and stars are hung in the sky like chandeliers This guy runs his own religion has his own town thinks women should be arrested for wearing pants And he's a flat earther. Oh Let's do this Oh Technically Wilbur Glenn Voleva didn't found the town of Zion, Illinois, which is about 40 miles outside Chicago That was the work of John Alexander Dowie an evangelist and faith healer who emigrated to the US from Australia in 1888 Dowie land at first in San Francisco with a hundred dollars to his name very swiftly He turned his faith healing practice into a booming mail-order business Might have been greed or possibly the Holy Spirit that inspired Dowie to turn his attention to the Windy City The World's Fair was coming to Chicago in 1893 and Dowie knew that the crowds the fair would attract could turn into customers for him something you can't help but wonder about this is Did people of the time just not recognize a scam like mail-order faith healing?

No disrespect, but mail-order faith healing our sweet innocent ancestors gave this man money And actually believed he could send them a miracle via the post office in all history There never were collected in one place so many charlatans at one time as are now in the great city of Chicago Where we find the king himself John Alexander Dowie the most Monumental fraud of the latter part of the 19th century the imposter who all newspapers are against all Decent people are against all Honesty and purity and truth are against yet Who as a bloodthirsty?

Vampire has fastened himself upon this Municipal body and intends to stay against all protests until he has sucked his fill oh I guess maybe they did know or at least the Reverend Frank DeWitt Talmadge knew Talmadge was the pastor at Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church in Chicago Talmadge railed against John Alexander Dowie called him a false prophet a modern satanic hypnotist perjurer and a hypocrite Since this sermon took place in 1899. He also threw in scoundrel coward because back then to call a man a Scoundrel was to serve up the most devastating insult to his honor but of course one man scoundrel is another man's role model as the Reverend Talmadge was Tearing Dowie to shreds from the pulpit Wilbur Glenn Volvo was warming up in the wings to take over Dowie's kingdom one puzzling little conundrum about Dowie is the uneasy fit between his lucrative faith healing business and his well faith At the same time that Dowie was cheerfully raking in money selling faith cures via the mail He firmly believed that Healing itself came only through God this required the recipient of his healing touch to have faith If you want it Dowie's prayers You had to first believe in the power of divine healing and what would a cynic say?

Immediately upon hearing this it's genius if the healing doesn't work It's because the person receiving it doesn't really believe it's their own Fault Nothing fell into Dowie's lap in Chicago the World's Fair didn't recognize his divine healing association as a legitimate church and Denied him a spot on the Avenue of Churches Dowie might have been disappointed, but he wasn't defeated Instead he set up shop across the street from the entrance to the World's Fair calling his new home Tabernacle number one Chicagoans called it a little wooden hut the walls were decorated with canes and crutches and orthopedic shoes The relics according to Dowie of those who heed healed by faith so that they no longer needed their medical aids Times were tough for Dowie that first year he needed a miracle Or a celebrity he got the latter Her name was Sadie Cody. Oh, you've never heard of her. Maybe you know her uncle Buffalo Bill Cody Sadie had come to Chicago to watch her uncle Buffalo Bill Cody perform his Wild West show at the World's Fair Soon after arriving Sadie's back pitched an unholy fit leaving her in agony Five of my vertebrae were worse than useless an Abscess as large as my fist was at the base of my spine a large swelling was developing into a tumor My leg was three inches short and in that condition. I was brought to Chicago Sadie suffered through the World's Fair and returned to her home in Indiana Where doctors examined her and reported there was nothing to be done But Sadie had heard tell of the astonishing cures being wrought by a faith healer at the little wooden hut So Sadie wrote to Dowie and he emailed her back a prayer and a specific time at which to pray it Sadie was amazed to find herself improving and so decided to make the trip back to Chicago After Dowie had laid hands on me in the name of the Lord there commenced a great struggle The feeling was dreadful and I became insensible I could not see nor hear nor speak but Immediately almost I awoke and what a blessed awakening. I felt new life in me There was no pain and no aching. I had really awoke to health From that moment. I have been rapidly improving and now I stand before you with both limbs of equal length My spine that was so sensitive that it could not be touched with a finger without fainting Can now be rubbed as hard as anyone can rub it the swelling from the abscess and tumor has gone For a dude that arrived in America with a hundred bucks to his name. Dowie was doing very very well By 1896 he'd founded his own church the Christian Catholic Church, which had nothing to do with that other famous Catholic Church Dowie was the proud author of a pamphlet called Rome's polluted Springs the man was no friend of the Vatican But he was ambitious clearly and over a period of a few years He secretly bought up 10 square miles of lakefront land roughly 40 miles north of Chicago It was there in July 1901 that Dowie found it Zion, Illinois It was to be Dowie's religious utopia there would be no smoking and no drinking Also, no dancing. No card games No theatrical entertainment of any kind and no driving over 10 miles per hour Pork was banned and so was spitting along with oysters tan colored shoes

swearing politicians and doctors Dowie Hated doctors. Oh one more thing getting caught whistling on a Sunday meant automatic jail time to the world at large the colony founded by John Alexander Dowie is a walled city which the Unbeliever may not enter and from which the faithful may not depart So a whole lot of stuff you couldn't do but what you could do according to Dowie Was live a sinless life and you could work in the lumber mill or maybe the electrical plant or the brick works And most famously in the Zion lace works which had its peak provided jobs for more than 3,000 people And did people flock to Zion they did Mostly drawn by Dowie's reputation as a faith healer and one of Dowie's most fervent followers was Wilbur Glenn vulva who joined Dowie's congregation four years after being ordained himself and Rapidly ascended to the position of elder of the Christian Catholic Church of Zion, Illinois in 1901 Vulva even went to Dowie's native Australia to oversee the Australian branch of the Christian Catholic Church Where Wilbur got into some bizarre legal trouble the hearing of the charge against Wilbur?

Glenn vulva a minister of the gospel in the Christian Catholic Church of Zion of Having used threatening words where breach of the peace might have been created Was resumed in the central police court today the words complained of were You'll have your head shifted We have enough here to throw you out bodily and we will do it in Cross-examination Bolivar said he had made use of the word scoundrel from the pulpit in a general way But he did not make use of the word on the night in question Nor did he call anyone a ruffian or apply an improper name to a woman?

Volvo was convicted and fined a fine he paid rather than spend seven days in prison And who knows what other shenanigans he might have gotten up to in the land down under had his hero and mentor Dowie Not suffered a stroke at the close of his sermon a week ago last Sunday Dowie Retired to a dressing room in the tabernacle and was almost immediately overcome His attendants placed him on a couch and in a short time It was discovered that one side of his body was completely paralyzed and that his condition was Serious Dowie was 58 years old, but in 1905 58 wasn't the new 38 58 was old like old old as in the life expectancy for a male in America at the time was about 54 years Dowie went to Jamaica with the intention of recovering from the stroke and then returning to the States to resume leadership of his Christian Catholic Church of Zion In the meantime, though, he asked Wilbur Glenn Bolivar to come home from Australia to serve as a temporary overseer this move placed Bolivar above every officer in the church except for Dowie himself and So Bolivar landed back in the States in February 1906 Just in time to seize control of the Christian Catholic Church of Zion from its founder in a secret session held at Dowie's own temple on April 2nd 1906 convened by Bolivar the founder of Zion was a unanimous vote Declared insane even Dowie's own wife and son voted against him and pledged their obedience to their new leader Wilbur Glenn Bolivar the prophet Dowie's autocracy has been broken and Zion City becomes spoil for lawyers The charge of insanity seemed to have far more to do with money than with the state of Dowie's mind The man owned not just property in Zion City, but he owned the Zion Bank to running it as an unincorporated entity Entirely under his own control The way Dowie mismanaged all of it was a scandal so enormous that the man just about had to have a catastrophic stroke If he was to get even an ounce of sympathy from his flock After a second stroke Dowie settled for a time in Mexico on the church's dime of course he sent a telegram home to Zion City signing it Elijah the second the title he'd given to himself and Demanding that the head of Zion Bank Deacon Alexander Gratinger be immediately fired from his position and kicked out of the church It was just an ill-conceived attempt by Dowie Brazen his way out of the mess He'd created if the Prophet were present perhaps his personal hold on his followers might have enabled him to carry the point Dowie also threatened Foliva and all church officials with disbissal unless they came to heal Multiple strokes old age and a vote of no confidence be damned Dowie was back in Chicago by May he stood in his old pulpit in Zion City in front of an audience of 600 and called Volova and his supporters a faction of thieves and robbers But whatever grip Dowie had once had on the Zionists the spell was broken The congregation was shouting and jeering a riot call was sent out to the local police Dowie weak and frail had to be carried from the tabernacle by two attendants His downfall was as dramatic as his rise and just about as seedy As if being accused of financial misdeeds wasn't bad enough He was also accused of polygamy his own wife testified against him And then his son Gladstone Dowie told the press that his father was crazy incompetent and a poor businessman

And if Gladstone was no fan of his father's he had even less respect for the new head of the church Wilbur Glenn Volova Volova is a hypocrite a liar and a traitor and the majority in Zion City are a pack of hypnotized Brain-sick fools such a combination can never stand and with that Wilbur Glenn Volova wrote a mutiny that he called a revolution To the very pinnacle of the Christian Catholic Church of Zion Only to find when he got there that Dowie's godly utopia was in an unholy amount of financial trouble Nine months after ascending to power Volova found himself handing over the reins of Zion City's industry to its creditors Dowie's church was six million dollars in debt Which sounds like the purchase price of a not even that impressive condo in Manhattan to us But in 1906 that six million dollars in debt was equal to a towering 216 million dollars The Dowie had created and sold worthless stock shares and Zion City properties didn't help So Volova set out to write the financial ship of Zion City It was fortunate or maybe an answered prayer that Volova like all the best of his kind had a special talent for dressing his sales pitches up in the garments of Scripture and Volva understood the power of media He named himself as an editor and was a frequent contributor to the city's newspapers the leaves of healing and later the Zion Herald Eventually, he even founded his own newspaper the Zion City Theocrat Volova wasted no time making sure that people knew his beliefs in detail He also understood how to use the language of faith to open wallets the appeal for Investments is made in such a way that all persons responding must do is prompted by the Holy Spirit And they must act from the highest and truest motive the redemption of Zion City ought to appeal to every Zion heart throughout the world and the plan outlined as such that every Wage-earner has the opportunity to do something definitely toward the redemption of Zion City Volva filled the pages of Zion City's newspapers with his ideas philosophies and pleas for donations There wasn't anything subtle about it Volva's asked included all the standard tricks guilt obligation peer pressure But there was also an unexpected education in how money can be put to work to beget Even more money the following table tells a remarkable story of what one dollar to $25 deposited each month will do in from 1 to 20 years when drawing interest at 6% anum not Compounded Volva in his new role as leader of the church and dowies religious utopia Could not have been more clear about how his flock should contribute remittances should be by post office orders express money orders or Bank drafts payable in Chicago or New York and should be made payable to Wilbur Glenn Voliva crisp and to the point let every officer Member and friend of Zion and every little child prayed daily to God for the complete Redemption of Zion City and for the establishment of one pure clean city for God's people With Christian love to all and earnest prayers for all I am faithfully yours in Jesus's name Wilbur Glenn Voliva

It sounds greedy and like something straight out of TV's the righteous gemstones but Zion City was broke and Wilbur Glenn Voliva was frantic to rectify that while still holding on to the idea that the city could truly be a pocket of godly goodness a Beacon calling to those whose faith was stronger than their worldly appetites At the same time it was in America part of a larger township county and state with streets to pave mail to deliver children to educate and Municipal offices to be filled but elections in Zion City were Weirdly unique forget the Democrat and Republican parties There was the Theocratic Party versus the People's Party To analyze this so-called People's Party would be both a difficult and an unpleasant task It's made up of all kinds Except true Zion people and there's not any doubt but that the devil sent many of them here as his advanced Agents, it's just depressing to realize that all you have to do is change a few names And this actually sounds like your news feed in 2025 I'm an old story from 1908 many of the so-called People's Party are how did do people and good morning people?

That is people who have gotten so far away from God that they act just like people of the world And no longer use the beautiful salutation peace to thee and Even more depressing to realize that today we make this same argument against those who say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas Surely, we really are the most exhausting meat creatures in the whole Milky Way Anyway with every passing day It was more and more clear that John Alexander Dowie hadn't built a religious utopia So much as he built a house of cards and now it was collapsing with Wilbur Glynn Voliva at their head The citizens of Zion City are making their last stand in the legal ditch Their fight is for the validity of the 1100 year leases with 75 restrictions that were invented by Dowie and sold to the faithful an 1100 year lease isn't at all the same thing as owning the land you built your home or business on and those 75 restrictions those were what called the faithful design city Without those fans on liquor and whistling and dancing and doctors and vaccines and cigarettes and women wearing pants Well, it would just be like any other place wouldn't it just a democracy instead of a theocracy a Man named Daniel Bryant who represented those in Zion City who were like, you know, maybe I don't know religion Doesn't have a place in municipal government It was a big mess and the Volvo was Dowie's handpicked successor. He didn't inspire the same fervent loyalty in the flock Dowie's was a cult of personality and the faithful hadn't all transferred their loyalty to Volvo Whatever the future may hold for Zion City whether the continuance of puritanical peculiarity or the introduction of liberalizing policies The present Zion City is in the grip of dissolution The atmosphere of decay hangs heavy over it Weeds grow high in the streets Empty dwellings tell of Zionists that have left Zion The huge hotel is all but vacant The Zionists mourn Dowie They miss the Moses who led them to the promised land and then died The Moses who ripped them off and profited from their trust and faith and now there's a new Moses in town Wilbur Glenn vulva's face Rebittances should be made payable to Wilbur Glenn vulva Did you wonder about that?

Vulva had been coaxing cajoling and bullying the faithful into mortgaging their homes and businesses and giving the money to the church except payable to him It was a strategy that worked By early 1910 vulva essentially owned all the major businesses in Zion City He'd used church funds to buy it up and then he put it all into his own name Under vulva Zion City struggled with politic chaos and religious conflict There were Methodist families in Zion City who'd been there for generations who've done their best to coexist with Dowie But who found vulva?

Intolerable those families had been worshiping in their small church building for 70 years Weirdly it burnt to the ground in 1908 Probably just a coincidence though, right? Vulva tuned out the noise of his detractors and somehow hung on to power by 1912 He'd launched a tour traveling in his own private train car paid for by a supporter Of course hitting cities like Vancouver, Los Angeles and st. Louis then personal tragedy in 1913 his wife Molly fell ill Vulva flatly refused to allow her to have any professional medical care Despite the fact that her doctor was her own father Your faith in God is the only medicine you need he insisted Molly suffered for more than a year before dying in February 1914 Vulva did remarry a little over a year later to a woman 18 years younger than Molly And this is right around the time that Wilbur Glenn vulva Formulated his ideas about the planet Earth It was Sunday August 16th 1914 at the Shiloh Tabernacle of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church of Zion Vulva's sermon that day started out with the usual he ranted about science Science is nothing but a lot of rot The inventions of men inspired by the devil he railed against medicine Medical science is a farce and fraud Doctors are thieves murderers drunkards and dope fiends Drugstores are worse than saloons He sneered at evolution he mocked geology and then he added something new a condemnation of Astronomy, where is heaven?

Heaven is up yonder. This is the earth When the Blessed Lord ascended they saw him going up. Did they not? Then the angels declared that in like manner. He would come again. Did they not and When he comes he is coming to earth is he not I Shall ask you this question If the world is whizzing around in space at the rate of a million five hundred thousand miles a day Whizzing around many times as fast as lightning travels. How is the Lord gone to light on it?

Just tell me There is heaven right up there and between this earth and heaven where God's throne is in the upper air are wicked lying spirits and Down below is hell By December of that year Bolivar had refined his cosmology and was ready to deliver the message to the congregation I believe this earth is a stationary plane that it rests upon water and that there's no such thing as the Earth-moving no such thing as the earth's axis or the earth's orbit It's a lot of silly rock born in egotistical brains of infidels Neither do I believe there's any such thing as a law of gravitation. I believe that that is a lot of rot, too There's no such thing I get my astronomy from the Bible by February 1916 he was all-in from a sermon titled the Bible declares the earth a plane Not a globe the foremost writers say that those who believe in the stationary plane theory can explain all Phenomenon as good as they can and in addition they have the evidence of their senses and the Word of God However for one to stand up in Chicago in the shadow of the Chicago University and of the Northwestern University and before all the preachers and lawyers and judges and doctors and dare to question the modern Astronomical theory how they get her and laugh why they say he must be crazy Who was crazy?

The man who believes the Word of God or the people who run off after science falsely so-called Bolivar had an underling who shared his conviction as to the planet shape a man called a puzzle Anton Darms Darms dug into the Bible and came up with a lengthy list of reasons why the earth couldn't possibly be shaped like a ball Darms published his findings in the Zion City paper leaves of healing Revelation chapter 7 verse 1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth Holding back the four winds of the earth that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree Psalms chapter 104 verse 5 He set the earth on its foundation. So it should never be moved Nephew chapter 4 verse 8 Again the devil took him to a very high mountain in showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory Bolivar rewarded arms for his work by making him the superintendent for the newly formed Zion City parochial school system It was Darms who created the entire curriculum for what they called Zion educational institutions Darms who hired all the teachers and Mandated that students be taught that the earth is flat Since the entire Zion City school board was controlled by members of the Theocratic Party The whole thing was rubber-stamped without so much as a raised eyebrow Bolivar might not have been as revered as Dowie And he never quite clocked the same impressive number of faith healings and life under his rule was almost unbearably strict But he was grossly insulting toward other people's faiths and some folks just eat that stuff up Especially when it comes straight from the pulpit the Christian Assembly Church is a monkey house Gross, but he also called it a spiritual whorehouse So pick your poison a guess the Grace Missionary Church is a goat house The pastor is a little pimp Grace Missionary Church was made up of former Zionists who rejected Bolivar and formed their own splinter sect So, of course that drove him bonkers with resentment Given this behavior. Is it all that shocking that all of his next move was to start up his own radio station and why not by 1922 when WCBD launched Zion City was finally healthy from a financial standpoint at least WCBD 5,000 watts Bolivar loved being on air hollering about what he called the devil's triplets astronomy evolution and higher criticism Higher criticism as a scholarly method of analyzing ancient texts by placing the work in the context of the time and place in which it was written Investigating the sources that sort of thing but applied to the Bible for example Bolivar found it offensive to the point of blasphemy and when he wasn't going off on the devil's triplets He was thundering on about the shape of the earth Bolivar announced that he was prepared to pay $5,000 to any person who could persuade him that the planet was a globe and not a flattened disc held stationary in space spoiler alert that $5,000 went unclaimed Bolivar also explained that there are three flat heavens one flat purgatory and another flat But slightly insipid hell an insipid hell

For a man who hated whistling and dancing and eating oysters. You'd expect a blistering hell a torturous hell Not an insipid hell Like oh lucifer. This place is so boring I was told there would be pitchforks a favorite topic for bolivar when he was in front of the wcbd microphone Was the sun? The idea of a sun millions of miles in diameter and 91 million miles away is silly The sun is only 32 miles across and not more than 3,000 miles from the earth It stands to reason it must be so God made the sun to light the earth and therefore must have placed it close to the task. It was designed to do What would you think of a man who built a house in zion and put the lamp to light it in?

Kenosha, Wisconsin Bolivar also taught his flat earth theories to more than a thousand elementary and high school students enrolled in his Zion City Parochial schools the earth is a flat Circular world with the north pole in the exact center No, south pole and surrounded by a wall of ice, which keeps adventurous some mariners from falling off the rim Bolivar teaches that the earth has no motion and remains stationary in space The law of gravitation is a fallacy When objects are thrown into the air they continue to rise until the force which expelled them is Expanded and then they fall back to earth because they are heavier than air Miss Thompson Principal of the Zion City schools says the children prefer their new flat world to the old-fashioned round one the students in Zion schools She says grasp the theory of the flat earth readily because their minds are not full of Globular earth teaching such as older folks have had drilled into them Therefore they accept the flat earth teaching without questioning Not because they have to but because it appeals to them as rational higher critics and modern believers in the Copernican system of astronomy laugh at Noah's flood and say that such a thing as a flood could not occur on a globe or spherical earth and I agree with them. They're perfectly right. That is what the devil intended when he invented the modern Astronomical theory to destroy the work of God Please please don't think not even for a second that the people of the not-so-distant Past all believe that the earth was basically a stationary pie plate They didn't they called Zion City the place of strange laws and flat earth notions Outside of his Illinois fiefdom Bolivar was considered a bit of a scheming crackpot Even a newspaper as deep in the Oklahoma heartland as the American Guardian Had no patience for Bolivar and his bizarre insistence when teaching children that the earth was flat From Bolivar you learn how strongly men cling to old falsehood how they hate new truth Every really great inventor statesman and thinker has known how men cling to original error and Even invent new brands of effort to escape unpleasant thought Thinking to the average man is like standing on its hind legs to a dog possible but unpleasant Both become impossible as dog and man get old Wish that didn't ring so true If taking over Zion City collecting church funds into his own accounts Dictating what could be taught to the children of the faithful and by whom and tossing science out the window didn't alienate the Zionists What in the world did?

That same old same old that always seems to come from men like Wilbur Glenn Bolivar Greed he could have called the earth a Ritz cracker, and it wouldn't have dulled his shine a bit But his increasingly lavish opulent over-the-top lifestyle Mr. Bolivar's power in Zion a depressing spraddle of wooden houses and mud is stonily autocratic He is master and head of all of Zion's industries from the handkerchief factory and meat shop to the bank school and radio broadcasting station which in spite of Bolivar's repudiation of all scientific research and Development is one of the most powerful in America the people living in that mud Under the thumb of all of us had no movie theaters to distract them. No public library No art no music other than hymns. No dancing. No bubblegum all of the disliked it Even fashion was strictly controlled the chief of police monitor women's hemlines and necklines The sight of a collarbone was forbidden Bolivar owned everything and the people of Zion City were his serfs his peasants The censorship is radical the law in Zion is seldom if ever violated There are no bandits and there is no liquor Young men do not do wrong and girls do not fall by the wayside All go to church They have to in December 1929 Bolivar's net worth was reportedly five million dollars but when no one yet understood especially Bolivar was the Great Depression was already underway and Bolivar's Zion City dictatorship Because that's what it was Was attracting a most unpleasant kind of attention In 1933 Bolivar was hauled before Congress on charges of election fraud Process he made a mockery of of course he did he'd crafted a life above the law and beyond its reach I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat I'm a theocrat my influence spreads over Zion City Lake County, Illinois and the whole United States back home in Illinois though the Great Depression hammered the industries and businesses of Zion City Forcing one after the next into bankruptcy by the end of May 1933 Zion City was placed under federal receivership Bolivar owed more than half a million dollars while showing zero personal assets Just a penniless man of God The city was in the hole for $800,000 nearly half its total value Employees in the various Zion City enterprises hadn't seen paychecks for two years But you can best believe they were required to show up for work Their wallets just as flat as Bolivar's earth It wasn't that he was a bad manager of Zion City Yes, he was greedy and shifty How else can you describe using church donations to build a personal fortune? There's a name for that Embezzlement, it's a crime But what got Bolivar was the Great Depression Because no amount of charisma, no sermon, no threat of damnation could make a dent in a worldwide economic downturn that left millions unemployed Decimated industrial production and saw hungry people standing in long lines for a piece of bread The end has apparently come for there is little likelihood that the receivership will revive a

sufficiently Rejuvenated Zion City ever the optimistic flat-earther though in 1907 when I came to Zion the city's assets were only 83 cents in 1927 it's assessed value was 10 million and in 1932 6 million that shows what I have done I'll do the same again as soon as there's an upturn Bolivar assured the faithful and the doubters that he would live to age 106 that Zion would flourish once again in all its puritanical fundamentalist glory Then a disgruntled employee of Zion's Shiloh Tabernacle set the building ablaze That setback was followed by Bolivar being forced to declare personal bankruptcy The dominoes fell rapidly after that the independents those godless inhabitants of Zion according to Bolivar Managed to seize control of Zion forcing Bolivar out of power and into an honorary role in the ultimate insult the new city leadership redesigned the sticker that every car in Zion was required to display and That meant Wilbur Glenn Bolivar was made to attach the image of a globe to his vehicle When preaching about the earth being flat as a phonographic disc Bolivar would also offer his predictions for the end of the world When the world failed to end as he predicted in 1923 1927 1930 1934 and 1935 Bolivar was philosophical. He could have met when he made a mistake according to the scriptures September 16th in 1936 began the last seven years of Gentile governments the world has entered into a period which will close in 1943 with the Battle of Armageddon When it's over in 1943 civilization will be demolished Anarchy and chaos will be everywhere The men to watch are Mussolini and Hitler. Bolivar got the names right and the dates wrong, but it didn't matter for him Wilbur Glenn Bolivar died on Monday October 12th 1942 he was 72 years old He was spared the destruction of his earthly home that giant pancake rimmed on all sides by a tower and wall of ice Newspapers all over the country reported on his passing The Volvo might have preferred not being remembered as a cult leader who ruled over an empire strangeness he'd be much happier to know that his memory is very much alive in the Flat Earth community and He'd love his modern descendants Volvo only had to fight with Copernicus and Admiral Byrd to defend his belief in a flat earth Today's flat earthers have to tie themselves into knots to get around the problem of NASA the Apollo mission cameras on satellites and reams and reams and reams of blunt evidence showing that earth is a sphere a globe a small lonesome watery blue ball floating in the inky vastness of space In Zion City, it still exists It's no longer a place where lipstick is forbidden and whistling might land you in jail About 25,000 people call it home. It's no longer any kind of religious utopia It even boasts its very own hometown serial killer Jorge a via Torres a World Series champ Jarvis Brown of the Minnesota Twins and our favorite The actor and 1970s TV sitcom star Gary Coleman when it comes to how people live and worship what they believe

Even if that belief seems silly like a flat earth We probably could all learn a little something not from John Alexander Dowie and not from Wilbur Glenn Boliva But from Zion City's other more famous son Gary Coleman who helped teach a whole generation that is Next time on true weird stuff Bigfoot the Loch Ness Monster Mothman the Chupacabra We have a name for these creatures. We call them cryptids and most people don't think they're real But once upon a time no one believed in gorillas Gorillas were a myth a savage monster in the size and shape of a man, but capable of mayhem Gorillas in the myth on the next true weird stuff Special thanks to our voice talents on this episode Erin Cox Kary "Doc" Bowser Sam Moore Lamar Richardson and Don Morgan So Sherry this is You know, I love the fact that we knew the earth was round even before Christopher Columbus, you know what I mean They had figured that out. They'd figured that out. So he was 1492 the ocean blue So it said they've known this for a long time Wilbur Glenn Boliva is a hero in the modern flat earth movement. He is quoted as Though they were quoting Albert Einstein his Preachings his writings about the flat earth are presented as gospel when you visit that corner of the Internet I just want to say that For a country that's only 250 years old How many of these kinds of characters do we have?

How many true weird stuff stories have we told about guys like this who they use religion to build an empire they fatten their own bank accounts and They it's rules for thee, but not for me And here's the deal people because you can you go why is there so much of this in America? What is it about America that inspires it? Let me answer that when the Puritans Fled England for the New World to escape religious persecution What they were escaping was their own selves being persecuted they got here to the New World and they fired up the persecution industrial complex and they persecuted the bejeebers out of each other and everyone else that ever drew breath and that is the foundation of This country the Puritans are the true bedrock of this country and all of these things that keep coming up that because history is cyclical Everything if it doesn't exactly repeat it definitely rhymes as the saying goes all of this insistence on Using religion as a tool of control Holding people holding people like slaves like peasants and serfs what vole of a set up in Zion City, Illinois it was a feudal society not unlike you saw in the Middle Ages with like milord the squire and The peasants who worked the squires lands and kicked up to the aristocracy or the nobility all the way up to the king That was kind of the model for Zion City and we have the Puritans which is why we despise them here at true weird stuff We have the Puritans to thank for so much of this nonsense You see Wilbur Gwen Bolivar, you see Jim and Tammy Baker That was a name that I wrote down because there were elements of Jim and Tammy Baker in this, you know They're selling something. Remember they they did that Jim and Tammy Baker had that they had lifetime memberships for PTL club. Yeah the PTL club for for this great big you know their own Disneyland down there and and you could go, you know, they were lifetime memberships and So there was this sort of huckster Mentality that was going on. I suppose people will always fall to it But I all I don't think it's because people are stupid. I think people are thirsty They're looking for something to follow. There is a yearning inside to follow something and you say well, you know, it's spiritual Well, and and they all seem to use this idea of well God's leading me to do this and those people they believe in God, but they've just kind of picked the wrong leader you know and I I have not one unkind word for any of the followers of Dowie or Bolivar I reserve all of that for the charlatan preachers Because you're right the people that follow whether it's Wilbur Glenn Bolivar Jim and Tammy Baker Joel Osteen or fill in the blank with a million names They are they are genuinely seeking and searching. They're seeking To perfect their faith. They're seeking to be closer to God. They're seeking to live in community, right and here we have You know, you don't you don't want to be mean Oh God, Sherry. Don't judge Make checks payable to Wilbur Glenn Bolivar. It couldn't have been more naked. It couldn't have been more obvious. It's true what he was about The money always seems to be a big part of this, you know for for all of these Situations with these these leaders. It always seems like they're lining their pockets They're they're professing to be religious leaders who are inspired by Jesus who truly didn't have anything You know, Jesus wasn't lying in his pockets, you know, and these people all seem to do it They seem to justify it and the people following them seem to find ways to justify that as well knowing

Because you know what's going on with that Faith is the most beautiful mystery. I think that human beings have But excuse me if I'm going to give you the side-eye about faith healing through the mail Well, it's how Dowie got his start Like I I have a hard my mom my grandma my grandma black hair Used to get the National Enquirer every week and the National Enquirer had something in it called the blue dot To the blue dot. Oh my god. Okay, please tell people about the blue dot had you had good luck with the blue dot so my brother my mother would go into the casino to The slot machines and she'd have the blue dot and she put the blue dot up to the machine because that was going to make Her win. Oh my god. I can't believe we're talking about the blue dot So I just have to ask you if you're gonna make fun of like Max's mom or my grandma for believing in the blue dot But you're gonna defend faith healing through the mail Hmm hmm I'll just say this much about my mother I'm not sure that she totally believed in it, but I think she did it just in case, you know, just in case You know, okay. Well, there's nothing lost by doing this was kind of her philosophy with that. So I Anybody they're being hurt by people that are taking their money and their their Goodness and hope Reverend Ike who said take the money out of your pocket throw it up in the air and what God wants God will take and Then the rest will go to me Yeah, and and there's always been these array of prayer cloths and and all kinds of things that are supposed to have special Abilities and special healing powers and you find people who are desperate I mean, there's the most debt a lot of times the most desperate come to a situation where they're looking for spiritual help And I just have to point out that God like real God does not need a nickel of your worthless earth money so You can you know people give Catholics a hard time for oh, they don't pray to God. They pray to the Virgin Mary Okay. Well, they're using an intermediary I'm sorry, you just paid what for a cloth. You just ordered a cure in the mail That's an intermediary to yeah, I think people I think people should first of all mind their business and let other people Believe and I think there's got to be in Dante's. What is it? There's nine circles of hell. Yeah This is school one of these circles has to be for these people who profit off of The faith of the faithful and who pick their pockets blind Did you catch the part about how for two years workers in Zion City's businesses went without paychecks?

Yeah, well you you do know, you know, I mean They I will and I love how people take Bible verses take them out of context and then use them for their own benefit To justify whatever sinister thing they've got going on, but you do remember what Jesus did with the money changers I mean I I paid attention enough to know that and I'm sure I'm sure that there is one of those levels. I think there is for these people Y'all what's really magical to behold and I want to shout out the grifting in the name of God community For what I think is a pretty outstanding magic trick So we start out with the Puritans who are like we don't want religious persecution unless we're persecuting you prudence So we start there and then we have about a hundred and fifty years of guys like John Alexander Dowie and Wilbur Glenn Boliva and Those guys are helping us move toward prosperity gospel Which is if you're a good person God blesses you with riches and if you're poor it must because you're shit Yes Right you can see and none of any of this and for anyone we don't this won't happen in the true-word stuff community But for anyone that would be like I'm so offended I'm clutching my pearls that you're saying these things about God ain't saying nothing about God. I'm talking about man talking about greed and trickery and abusing good decent people They're working. They've given everything. They don't even own the home that they're living in They just have a hundred eleven hundred year lease on it. That's some bullshit They've given you everything including their faith and their trust and and the caretaking of their immortal souls And this is how you this is how you do them. It's a disgrace I think the coolest part of this story is that Zion City is still a thing. Yeah, it's just not It's not a kooky religious utopia anymore And I could not I was so delighted to find out that Gary Coleman from different strokes Um, do you know what was astonishing from Zion City?

What is astonishing about this is the the amount of money? So as you said before six million dollars Was it like 19? Let's just say 1920. So this went on for 30 years there now start with Dowie and going on So you say six million dollars back then and I I can go on and do an inflation calculator But six million dollars was a lot of money back then About two hundred and sixteen million. I mean days dollars, I mean the city You know think everything works until it doesn't and that's the problem with being conned being tricked and being lied to Because the the charlatan says to you I'm gonna make all your dreams. Everything is gonna be awesome You are in his light and at first as the as the grifter is robbing you blind Emptying out the cupboard stripping the walls of the metaphorical house at first you don't realize what's happening because the lights are still coming on and the trains are still running and You know, you're still living your daily life getting up going to work putting the kids to bed But that grift and that ripoff it begins to accelerate and as it accelerates You begin you begin feeling the pinch and this is what happened to the people in Zion City And then one day you look up and you don't you're not gonna paycheck anymore And you don't own the house that you live in you don't own the business You've given all your money to this man in exchange for what you thought was was a secure and prosperous life and now you've got Literally nothing. So you want to talk about despair and sunk-cost fallacy. What were these people to do?

This is like forget calling this a crime. This is a sin to do this to people This is a sin. Well, I mean, you know It's a similar thing happened in the South After the Civil War when you you had mills You had people that were working in mills and they could earn mill money. So they weren't earning real money They could buy they would earn money that they could use in Mill sponsored stores to buy things and all and you were beholden to them and it was it was it was almost Feudal the only thing that was missing from that was the God aspect of it I You just you look at this and you just throw your hands up and go not again. Oh My god, do we never learn what's fascinating to me?

And this is a short episode of true weird stuff because I'm out in The beehive state looking after my mom and she has a doctor's appointment. I have to leave to take her But I just want to point out how many things in this episode All I needed to do was change a name and a date and it sounds like I'm reading from today's news feed Does it not there's a lot of things that are similar which just lets you know That human nature is human nature and we never really do seem to learn anything as we don't actively we don't seem to learn We don't We don't and we we we keep saying how does this keep happening because our very foundation is built on this It's built on this kind of repressive this idea of repressive control The flat earth thing. I mean you can see why the guy's a hero in the flat earth community He's got his own town He creates his own school system and and thousands of kids are taught That the earth is flat and the last thing I'll say about that flat earth people drive me out of my mind But I admire them at the same time because the mental agility that it takes to believe that the earth is flat is Spectacular spectacular The last thing I'll say about the schoolchildren in the flat earth the relief I felt in in discovering that virtually no one in mainstream America agreed with Bolivar about the earth and that was in the 1920s and 30s that was before the Apollo mission before the pit we could see the image of the pale blue dot Even then people were like get the hell out of here with this kooky nonsense Doesn't that make you feel a little bit better does that does make you feel a little bit better?

Yeah, the mainstream the mainstream accepted, you know What was generally accepted in the scientific community about the way things were I mean we had enough evidence We had enough evidence of it at that point reality So before we wrap up this episode and you would think I keep thinking surely to God We've drained America's coffers of religious charlatans dry One around every corner boy We did an episode a while back called the Kings rhinoceros which was about the king of Portugal and his beloved pet rhinoceros that he sent to the Pope as a gift and there was a terrible storm at sea and the ship sank the rhinoceros went down with the ship and The Pope was not happy because he wanted his rhinoceros and the king was like, well There's only the one in all of Europe because that was the truth one rhinoceros in Europe he dragged the rhinoceros up from the bottoms of the depths had it taxidermied and Presented that lumpy monstrosity to the Pope which just about triggered a holy war In the course of doing that episode episode we talked about how people thought gorillas were like Bigfoot right gorillas were a myth That's right. So next week on your weird stuff. We're gonna take a look at the myth of the gorilla Because it's relatively very recently that a gorillas were discovered to be real things and not cryptids like the Mothman and be That a gorilla came to America for the first time and what the people of the day thought about that gorilla is lol it's also The story of the very first zoo in the USA and the role that little gorilla played in that zoo so yeah for all of you people that roll your eyes at Bigfoot and chupacabra and Loch Ness Monster people used to roll their eyes at gorillas and kangaroos and Komodo dragons and on and on and on Sherry you really go to the ends of the earth to get stories. I do all over the side I Do I'm gonna climb that ice wall and we'll see you on the next episode of true weird stuff And if you listen to us on Apple podcast hit the plus button in the top right corner And now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered and we really appreciate it If you subscribe rate and review true weird stuff hit our website true weird stuff For show notes and photos and videos when we have it and bonus content Everything true weird is waiting for you at true weird stuff Calm and follow true weird stuff on Instagram true weird stuff is a Now! Media production Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia The show is written and hosted by me Sheri Lynch along with my deeply weird director max Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr original graphics by Kevin Nash original artworks by Olivia Axland true weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and copyright 2025 Now! Media all rights reserved all wrongs remembered You