The audience...applauded when informed that the Society?s board of directors had voted unanimously to dispose of Beth-Sarim, either by outright sale or by rent, because it had fully served its purpose and was now only serving as a monument quite expensive to keep; our faith in the return of the men of old time whom the King Christ Jesus will make princes in ALL the earth (not merely in California) is based, not upon that house Beth-Sarim, but upon God?s Word of promise.( "All Nations? Expansion? Assembly," The Watchtower, 15 December 1947, p. 382.)http://www.catholicapologetics.net/JW_Deed.htm
The Society's only known comment on Beth-Shanhttp://www.premier1.net/~raines/bethshan.htmlAs stated above, the Society only mentioned Beth-Shan once in its literature. This was in the May 27, 1942 Consolation magazine (now called Awake! ). In its long article on the court battles over Rutherford's burial request, they mentioned the location of the second proposed burial site as being on their Beth-Shan property:
The judge decided to continue the case so that the new site could be brought before the Planning Commission... the second plot was a proper place for burial.... The Planning Commission, who deliberated for more than two weeks, investigating the site, was haled before the court, and denied the second application for a cemetery.... New location for interment was almost in the center of the property known as Beth-Shan, which is roughly 75 acres of canyon and mesa land, adjoining Beth-Sarim but separated by a half-mile width of canyon. This property, also belonging to WATCHTOWER, has one small and one large dwelling on it and a few outhouses, and consists of some fruit trees and other cultivated patches in aggregate about seven acres, and about 65 acres of unreclaimed brush, either too steep, or rocky, or inaccessible for development.... Judge Rutherford, in a discussion before his death, had said that as a second choice he wished to be buried somewhere on these wild acres. In order that all the objections made in regard to the first site near to Kensington Heights might be removed to this new site, it was requested that only a ten-foot-square cemetery be granted. The spot was also inaccessible except by a private road a half mile long and closed by a gate. [5]This only known reference to Beth-Shan was given in the context of trying to show that their second requested site for Rutherford's burial in a one-man cemetery near an exclusive residential area was reasonable. They pointed out that it was almost at the center of 75 acres of "canyon and mesa land," 65 acres of which were composed of "unreclaimed brush, either too steep, or rocky, or inaccessible for development." They further pointed out that these "wild acres" were "inaccessible except by a private road a half mile long and closed by a gate." According to Fred Eason, who was later to purchase some of the Beth-Shan property and residence (discussed below), the dirt road which was accessible through a gate, was also guarded by JWs, so unauthorized individuals couldn't enter. He first stumbled onto the Society's building of the Beth-Shan residence while he was looking for "Young's Cave," a series of man-made caves or tunnels in the area. He was "rebuffed" by "several men on horseback" and watched the building of Beth-Shan from a different side of the mesa canyon. [6]These admitted facts raise the question of why the Society deemed it necessary or appropriate to purchase this nearly "inaccessible" property, build two "dwellings" on it and try and keep it all secret (except for the above mysterious or brief mention), even guarding and gating its sole, dirt road access. They apparently even tried to cover up what they were doing when rumors of Beth-Shan's existence circulated among JWs in early 1940 (see "False Reports" below).The answer that makes the most sense to me is the Beth-Shan property and residence was what is now commonly called a "cult compound." Many cultic groups in the United States in recent years who have believed that Armageddon is about to break and will find their little group at the center of the action (or at least the reason for it), build remote or barely accessible and well guarded and protected buildings in the "boon-docks," not metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles or New York (the Watchtower Society's world headquarters is in Brooklyn, NY). They believe Armageddon will involve world-wide war, perhaps nuclear, and those groups who believe only their little group will make it through tend to build fallout and bomb shelters to protect their small following or at least their leaders who will emerge leaders on the New Earth. Major metropolitan areas will be the first casualties, so to the mountains and deserts they flee, sometimes building underground residences. Supporting this view of Beth-Shan's purpose is the Society's statements regarding the soon approach of Armageddon and famines, the inaccessibility of Beth-Shan, their secrecy and covering-up its existence and purpose, and the fact that it had two bomb shelters.
